3. Imagine

Two babies enter our world, each weighs 7 pounds and is unable to focus its eyes, naked and has no teeth. They are unable to feed themselves, keep themselves safe and warm, walk or talk. They communicate by crying, squirming around and messing themselves.

BUT both have amazing spirit and zest for life, beating hearts and fantastic minds able to control most of the functions of their incredible bodies.

They lack all forms of prejudice and look and behave just like millions of other babies throughout the world .

Perhaps one might be your child, grandchild or great grandchild.

Now imagine that these two babies arrive in two very different locations: one in a well off family in a rich and powerful country, the other in a poor family in a weak and unsettled land. Take a moment to reflect on the difference this arrival location will make to the rest of their lives when there are:

• More than one billion people in the world living on less than US$1 a day;

• 2.7 billion struggling to survive on less than US$2 per day;

• More than 800 million people going to bed hungry every day, including 300 million children;

• A person dying of starvation every 3.6 seconds, most of them being children under the age of 5;

• 6,000 people every day who die from HIV/AIDS and another 8,200 who are infected with the deadly virus.

Is that how our world should be? Remember that one of those babies might be yours - which one should be irrelevant since we are all part of the same human family. All created by the same god, if that is how it all began - how angry would that god be to see such unequal treatment of his ultimate creation!

There are plenty of reasons and explanations for the inequalities those two little babies may experience throughout their lives, but this blog views them as excuses. There is something innately wrong with a world where such inequalities occur routinely on such a frequent and widespread basis. It does not have to be like that and we want to do something about it. Do you?