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It all started with a middle class family, Eugene & Minhee Cho ,who became enthralled by statistics of extreme poverty around the world.
Statistics like:
- Approximately 9.2 million children under the age of 5 die each year, mostly from preventable diseases. That’s approximately 25,000 children each day.
- 2.5 billion people around the world do not have access to adequate sanitation and about 885 million people do not have access to clean water.
- Nearly 11,500 people die every day from HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis and malaria. Nearly two-thirds of these people are living in sub-Saharan Africa.
- 75 million children are out of school around the world, a figure equivalent to the entire primary school-aged population in Europe and North America.
They memorized the statistics, and played them over and over in their minds trying to decide what they could do about it. They finally decided they were going to give up their salary for 2009. They were going to trust that they would be provided for, and donate the whole of their salary to help fight extreme poverty. They donated $68,000 to fight global poverty. They also asked their family and friends to join them. They asked that they might be willing to give up One Day’s Wages…not their whole salary, but one day’s worth of their salary on their birthday.
The Cho’s realize that money alone won’t solve issues of poverty, but it is the beginning of developing a care and concern for those who live with a whole lot less than we do. Check out their list of partners and what they’re doing together to help end extreme poverty by working to allow people to lift themselves out of poverty.
How much is One Day’s Wages for you? What could that do for someone in need?
