“Be the difference you want to see in the world” – Mahatma Gandhi 

According to UNICEF, 24,000 children die each day due to poverty. And they die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from scrutiny and the conscience of the world

That is equivalent to:

1 child dying every 3.6 seconds

16-17 children dying every minute

A 2010 Haiti earthquake occurring almost every 9-10 days

A 2004 Asian Tsunami occurring almost every 10 days

An Iraq-scale death toll every 16–40 days

Just under 9 million children dying every year

Some 79 million children dying between 2000 and 2007

The silent killers are poverty, hunger, easily preventable diseases and illnesses, and other related causes. In spite of the scale of this daily/ongoing catastrophe, it rarely manages to achieve, much less sustain, prime-time, headline coverage.

• Over 3 billion people - lives on less than $ 2.50 a day and at least 80% of humanity lives on less than $10 a day.
• Nearly a billion people entered the 21^st century unable to read a book or sign their names
• Number of the children in the world: 2.2 billion;  number of those in poverty: 1 billion (every second child)

10.6 million died in 2003 before they reached the age of 5 (same as children populations in France, Germany, Greece and Italy)

Why this tragedy is not in the Headlines? Are we so cynical that we don’t care at all? Or is not attracting enough? Or even more dramatic, it is not even a news, because this happen every single day?

Growing up in Asia over the next ten years will be a significant challenge for many children. Of the 1.27 billion children in Asian developing countries, 600 million or almost 50% will be severely deprived of some of their basic needs – food, safe water, sanitation, health services, shelter, education services and information. Over 350 million of them will be absolutely poor.

Behind these huge, but abstract numbers lie countless tales of injustice, struggle and wasted potential. Such a magnitude of child poverty in Asia is a serious challenge to the economic development and security of the region, as 600 million severely deprived children grow up into a similar number of very poor adults in a few years.

India has the largest number of poor children of any country. An estimated 80% of its 400 Million children are severely deprived, and 60% are absolutely poor. Almost half of all children under five are malnourished; India has the largest number of working children in the world, and accounts for 20% of the world’s out of school children.

Investing in the human capital of children is the most cost-efficient and effective way of combating inter-generational poverty, and Health and education programs for poor children are the best way to do this and are relatively inexpensive compared to many other types of development interventions such as infrastructure projects.

Despite global progress nearly 120 million school-aged children worldwide — most of them girls — are not enrolled in school. Education gives people the power to transform their lives. We need to know about what the life is like for a child in poor countries

There are many reasons children do not go to school or stay until they are done. They may have to walk a long distance to get to school, have no food to eat at home, there is no teacher or they have to take care of a younger brother or sister.

The best way to stop this shameless injustice is to give to children the opportunity to have an education.

Education is a fundamental human right and vital to achieving economic growth, increasing income, and sustaining a healthy society. Education is important for helping to improve lives, break the cycle of poverty and ensure that all people, particularly women have control over their destiny.

We are part of the world community; we cannot ignore these facts. A child is a child no matter where she/he lives. They have the right to be part of this world in the most decent way possible. We are one world, we are connected and we want to be connected.

FairTour is committed to ensuring that all girls and boys are able to realize their full potential. We know that children will flourish if they are able to go school, stay there until they finish and learn the basic skills of literacy, mathematics, life skills and critical thinking in a supportive setting. We help them to do this by supporting education initiatives. We work in communities across the globe for the long term, getting to know their needs so we can better help them.

Very often there is people willing to help, is just a matter of make them aware how to do this. Everyone is aware about the poverty in the world, still is something far away from our world, from our lives. Many people are willing to do more than donating; they want to see the result of what they are giving.

For this reason FairTour wants to increase the awareness on these issues by connecting with far away countries. Visiting their countries, experiencing their culture, understanding their values and lifestyles, appreciating their differences. And then we will care; we will advocate and will change the world, starting from us.