"We can end poverty by 2025... and change the world forever"
This is the catch of the book - can we really??
The End of Poverty, written by Jeffrey Sachs (a renown Havard Professor) , foreword by Bono, is a book that catches you eyes if you also want to eradicate the plight for the extreme poor.
Prof Sachs accounts his work in Boliva and Poland, and analyse the situation for China and accounted the rise in India and considers that we can really end poverty in our life time, if Governments work together with IMF, World Bank....
Must say that I am impressed by Prof Sachs hard work and his vision, but am doubtful as to whether his vision can be realised, which hinges largely on USA's benevolence (to forgive debts, to increase assistance....) (however, such benevolence bascially does not exist...)
Yet, (most probably Prof also knows this), the end of the book gives us new direction and new hope ----
He (basically writing to the very rich but I think most of us in HK are applicable) writes:
"For individuals who already have all the earthly possessions that can possibly be amassed, could there be a better way to give meanign to vast wealth?" (ok, for us, we have a lot, though may not be "all". But still, most of us have more than enough...
He then encourages us to "make a personal commitment" and writes
"In the end, howeverm it comes back to us, as individuals. Individuals, working in unison, form and shape societies. Social commitments are commitments of individuals. Great social forces, Robert Kennedy powerfully reminded us, are the mere accumulation of individual actions. His words are more powerful todaya than ever:
""Let no one be discouraged by the belief there is nothing one man or one woman can do against the enormous array of the world's ills - against misery and ignorance, injustice and violence....Few will have the greatness to bend history itself; but each of us can work to change a small portion of events, and in the total of all those acts will be written the history of this generation...
It is from the numberless diverse acts of courage and belief that human history is shaped. Each time a man stands up for an ideal, or acts to improve the lot of others, or strick out against injustice, he sends a tiny ripple of hope, and crossing each other from a million different centers of energy and daring, those ripples build a current which can sweep down the mightiest walls of oppression and resistence.
Let the future say of our generation that we sent forth mighty currents of hope, and that we worked together to heal the world."
May be we can't do much, but we should try to spare what we are WILLING to spare and to share.
http://www.worldvision.org.hk/default.asp
http://www.sjs.org.hk/tc/intro/index.php
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