WORLD POVERTY

From time to time everybody receives a charity appeal. It may be posted through your door or a leaflet in a newspaper. We receive so many of them that we tend to become a bit blasé about the whole charity thing, but a recent appeal from the Plan charity contained some particularly harrowing statistics.
"It's a tragic reality that one in five children born in the poorest countries won't live to see their 5th birthday. ...600 million children worldwide live on less that 70p a day - that's ten times the UK population. Working for more than 70 years and with over 100,000 child sponsors in the UK alone, Plan aims to help more children realise their full potential - and improve the lives of future generations."
Despite the sincerity and undoubted humanity of the Plan people the problem has got worse in the last 70 years. Workers contributing a pittance, to relieve the problem of world hunger are pointless. What we need is a transformation in the basis of society to one where all food, clothing and shelter are produced solely to satisfy human needs not to make a profit. RD