This is a series of provocations designed to provide resources for students to inquire into the UN’s Sustainable Development Goals, or SDGs. For more, click here.
Extreme poverty is defined as a deprivation of basic human needs, such as food, shelter, sanitation, clean water, and education. The Sustainable Development Goal to end extreme poverty by 2013 is within reach–the number has declined by half between 1990 and 2015, and this global goal aims to finish the job. Share the following resources to help students inquire into this goal and to learn ways they can make a difference.
Resource #1: Extreme Poverty: Choices by US AID
Resource #2: United Way Poverty
Resource #3: Poverty, Inc
Resource #6: 5 Ways to Fight Poverty by Outreach International
Resource #5: Living On a Dollar a Day photoseries by Renée Byer. See more from the series at Time.
Jestina Koko, 25, with her daughter Satta Quaye, 5. Crippled since the age of three, she depends on her arms to lift and drag herself. She survives by doing laundry for others, selling cookies on the street, and begging in Monrovia, Liberia. Both of them suffer from malaria. She wishes for a wheel chair, a private room to live in and for her daughter to go to school. They sleep in the hallway of a home that has no electric, toilet or running water and own nothing. August 29, 2010. PHOTOGRAPH COPYRIGHT ©RENÉE C. BYER 
Rudra, 5, and his sister Suhani, 3, search for tea to drink at the Charan slum Settlement in Dharamsala, India, where they live with their family. They survive although two of their siblings recently died of malnutrition. 
Following the death of his father, Alvaro Kalancha Quispe, 9, helps his family survive by herding. He opens the gate to the stone pen that holds the family’s alpacas and llamas each morning so they can graze throughout the hillsides during the day. He then heads off to school, but must round them up again in the evening in the Akamani mountain range of Bolivia in an area called Caluyo, about an hour from the city of Qutapampa. In this part of the world, the highlands of Bolivia, approximately 13,000 feet above sea level, residents live in homes with no insulation, no electricity, and no beds. Their water comes from streams that run off the snow-covered mountains. Their livelihood lies with their animals, for each animal produces about three pounds of fur each year, and each pound of fur is sold for 18 bolivianos, which amounts to about $2.50 U.S. All in all, this family may earn about $200 of income each year from the herd they watch over. PHOTOS COPYRIGHT ©RENÉE C. BYER
Resource #6: Fly Away Home by Eve Bunting
Provocation Questions:
- What is poverty?
- How can we be more aware of extreme poverty in our communities?
- What is our responsibility to help end extreme poverty?
- How can we support people living in poverty in a way that promotes human dignity?
featured image: DeathToTheStockPhoto