Creating global citizens
Problems such as extreme hunger and high rates of newborn mortality have a huge impact on the world’s poorest regions, yet these issues remain mostly invisible to people in more affluent countries
One of the reasons that I’m so optimistic about human nature is because I’ve seen how the world responds to natural disasters. I know that may sound strange, but think about what happened after Typhoon Haiyan struck the Philippines in November 2013. Within just six months, the International Red Cross and Red Crescent Movement raised more than $350 million (Dh1.285 billion) for relief efforts.
Schoolchildren around the world, from Canada to Indonesia, organised fundraisers and collected donations. Football legends Ronaldo and Zinédine Zidane took part in a benefit match in Switzerland that raised $190,000 for the recovery. Even a group of smallholder farmers in Haiti, who know how devastating natural disasters can be after having lived through the Portau-Prince earthquake in 2010 and Hurricane Sandy in 2012, pooled their limited resources to send help to Filipino farmers displaced by the typhoon.
The global response was incredible. But it was also predictable.
Generosity is at the core of our humanity; there is overwhelming evidence that people truly care about each other. When we are confronted with images of human suffering and need, we take action as global citizens.
But there’s an important corollary to that statement: When the people who need our generosity remain unseen, our vast reserves of global compassion go untapped.
Take Jane Otai, for example. With her college education, Jane would have made more money and led a more comfortable life if she had left the large slum in Nairobi, Kenya, where she grew up. Instead, faced with the needs of the women and girls in her community, Jane decided to stay and dedicate herself to improving their access to family planning resources.
Unfortunately, people who grow up in communities such as Jane’s — places where extreme poverty and disease are an everyday occurrence — often remain unseen by those of us who live in developed countries.
That is one of the biggest challenges organisations face when trying to mobilise the public against persistent global crises. Problems such as extreme hunger and high rates of newborn mortality have a huge impact on the world’s poorest regions, yet these issues remain mostly invisible to people in more affluent countries.
News about malnutrition, malaria and child mortality, for example, rarely hits the front pages — in part because these troubles have existed throughout human history. Many people have resigned themselves to the idea that problems such as these are simply part of the human condition, instead of urgent global priorities that should be swiftly addressed.
Such resignation is both misplaced and dangerous. In terms of absolute numbers, enduring global crises such as poverty and disease are much deadlier than isolated natural disasters.
Typhoon Haiyan killed more than 6,000 people — a tragedy any way you look at it. But consider the fact that in 2013, 17,000 children under the age of 5 died every day, and mostly from entirely preventable or treatable causes. If that’s not an emergency worthy of the world’s attention, I don’t know what is.
Pressing questions
Here, then, is one of the most pressing questions that the global community faces: How do we shine a light on ongoing global crises so that we can tap into people’s innate compassion — and channel it into action?
Technology is an important part of the answer. In our hyper-connected world the suffering of the world’s poorest people is no longer as remote — and the various means of assisting them are more accessible to more people than at any other time in history.
In fact, my husband, Bill, and I believe that the combination of technology and compassion is one of the most powerful forces imaginable. It can literally change the world. That’s why we’re putting our support behind an initiative called Global Citizen (globalcitizen.org), an international effort bringing millions of people together to create a better world.
Today we have an opportunity to improve health and reduce extreme poverty faster than at any other moment in history. Global Citizen is helping to make that happen by connecting individuals who want to take action to reduce poverty and its broader effects (but who might not be sure how to do that) with nongovernmental organisations interested in reaching a wider audience of potential activists. Through its digital platform and by hosting special events, Global Citizen is creating a community dedicated to the social good — one that enables people everywhere to learn about and advocate the issues they care about most, whether that’s advancing women’s reproductive rights, working to end severe hunger or using social media to promote environmental sustainability.
It’s understandable that in the face of massive and deeply entrenched problems such as extreme poverty and child mortality, people might feel overwhelmed, believing that it is impossible for any one individual to make a difference. But you and I are lucky. We live at a time when it has never been easier to help others — or to reach more people in need. Let’s not wait any longer to get started.