Everyone deserves a future but the fact is that today not everyone has one. Let’s change that.
THE STATISTICS ARE staggering. The world’s richest 1 percent have twice the amount of wealth as 6.9 Billion people, and half of humanity lives on less than $5.50 per day. Additionally, over 2 billion people don’t have a decent toilet of their own, 1.2 billion people don’t have access to reliable energy, 815 million people suffer from chronic malnourishment, 785 million people don’t have access to clean water, over 260 million children are out of school, and over 10,000 people a day die because they don’t have access to affordable healthcare. And all these numbers are before we start thinking about factoring in the impact that climate change and environmental destruction, as well as other issues, including the overall lack of social mobility, will have on people and their lives.
When you are one of the people that these statistics apply to it’s difficult to think about anything other than day to day survival, let alone the future, and ironically if you are a child sitting next to an open sewer in a slum the only thing that you can be almost certain of is that you have no future.
Despite all of humanities amazing accomplishments, and despite that in many cases we already have the technology and solutions we need to solve some of these inequalities, whether it be climate change, education, energy, or even famine, it’s incomprehensible that against the backdrop of such global wealth and global ingenuity that these statistics in many cases are still measured in the billions.
At the 311 Institute and World Futures Forum we salute everyone who is committed to moving the dial and making a difference to improving the lives of everyone living on this precious blue and green spacecraft we call Earth and giving people who have no, or little future, hope. And we’re here to help, to start and stir conversations, share ideas and solutions through our Future World Series initiatives and promote the development of new ones, and work with and support people who want to make an impact and help unleash the world’s exponential potential. After all, everyone has the right to a future …