Campaign to end poverty visits UNC

For those involved with the Global Poverty Project, the 1.4 billion people living in extreme poverty worldwide represent 1.4 billion reasons to take action.

The Global Poverty Project took its message to UNC’s Student Union Tuesday as part of a nationwide tour to raise awareness about extreme poverty.

The project aims to end global poverty within one generation.

Aubin is part of a four-person group known as the “Road Scholars” that is spending the next few months traveling to more than 100 different universities, high schools and community groups across the United States to share the Global Poverty Project’s awareness campaign.

The goal of Aubin’s presentation was to challenge the assumption that the problem of poverty cannot be solved.

Shannon Heath, another road scholar, said it is the duty of the youth to work to absolve poverty.

“It’s the civil rights issue of our generation,” Heath said. “There is absolutely no reason that over one billion people should live in extreme poverty when the majority do not. If you say you believe in a certain cause, you won’t just stand around and allow it to happen.”

UNC nursing student Jamie Glover attended the presentation because of her interest in global public health.

“It definitely provided some good ideas on how to take care of poverty and health care problems on a global level, which may help us crack this on our smaller level,” she said.

The project takes ideas from the United Nations’ eight Millennium Development Goals, which it hopes to achieve by 2015. The number one goal is to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger.

But Aubin admitted that the quest to end poverty has met inefficiencies and unsuccessful programs.

“I’m not going to overlook the fact that there is bad aid out there,” Aubin said. “But good aid exists. It makes people self-sufficient and builds infrastructure that will exist even when the aid is gone.”

Heath said progress can be made on these issues.

“There are tools that you and I — everyday people — can use to make a difference and help end extreme poverty in our lifetimes.”

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