one world week

This is “One World Week” and I am reminded of the following stark statistics used by many international aid organisations (it’s also one of the daily readings in the excellent “Growing Hope” publication by the Iona Community):

Imagine shrinking the earth’s population to a village of 100 people with all the existing human ratios remaining the same.
The village would have 61 Asians, 12 Europeans, 13 North or South Americans, 13 Africans. One white person from Oceania.
There would be 51 females and 49 males.
70 non-whites, 30 whites.
70 non-Christian and 30 Christians.
50% of the village’s wealth would be in the hands of 6 people – all North American citizens.

80 villagers would live in substandard housing;
70 villagers would be unable to read;
while 50 would suffer from malnutrition.
One villager would have a college education.