What Is the Global Poverty Rate?

The global poverty rate is a little difficult to identify, as it is somewhat culturally determined. Merriam-Webster defines poverty as “the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions.”[1] Each culture’s socially acceptable money level is slightly different. Statisticians with The Borgen Project consider living on less than $1.90 a day as living in extreme poverty, and about 702 million people in the world fall into this category.[2]

GFA World works closely with people most affected by poverty and its symptoms like limited access to clean water, food, healthcare or education. That is why GFA has such a clear focus on helping communities develop and ending the cycle of poverty, all done in the name of Christ. This work is carried out in many ways, including child sponsorship, income-generating gifts, literacy training, free medical care, clean water, and more. Raina is one example of someone helped through a GFA World national missionary.

Raina was the child of a very poor family. There was little money for anything, but Raina’s parents were able to put her through school up until the tenth grade. Raina could see that they couldn’t afford her schooling anymore, and she gave up her studies to help her parents labor in the fields, trying to earn enough money to buy food. When Raina got married, she continued to work in the fields to supplement her husband’s meager income, unable to do much else since she dropped out of school. Raina’s children were destined to grow up in the same poverty she did.

Occasionally, Raina would join her parents at a church nearby, led by GFA pastor Taedin. Pastor Taedin was aware of Raina’s situation and looked for ways to meet her family’s physical needs as well as their spiritual ones. The generosity of people around the world make it possible for GFA to give gifts to impoverished people that make a way for them to escape poverty. Sometimes, that gift is a sewing machine or chickens. For Raina, it was a goat. Raina could now use the goat to help fertilize the crops, leading to a more bountiful harvest, and she could sell its milk to supplement more income. The goat would help break the cycle of poverty in which Raina’s family had been trapped for generations.[3]

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