Please take a few moments to read this reflection from one of Richland’s Grade 6 students.  This piece began as a Current Events story to share with her class, and her message was so compelling that we wanted to share it with you too!

Imagine you were someone in the state of poverty. Imagine having a hard life every single day, or not being able to go to school because you need to get water for your family to survive. Having to carry huge jugs of water on your back for hours when you are only a child. Imagine dying because of thirst or starvation. Imagine having no place to call home, no roof over your head at night, and no education. We can only imagine this, but this is reality for some people.When I found out that this year we were doing current events on big issues, I knew almost right away that I wanted to do mine on poverty. We have been learning a lot about poverty while learning about and helping Free the Children, which helped me with my decision. Poverty is such a big thing in the world, and SOOO many people are affected by it. We should be helping to make a difference. Most people don’t live long when their lives are like this, and I don’t think that this is right. There are children who have nothing to drink besides dirty water from lakes, and this is making them sick.

We need to help. We might think, “Why should I care? This doesn’t affect me.” But it does affect us, because it’s affecting our Earth and the people who live in it. We need to help because we can help. There are young children suffering, and this needs to change. 
There are many different ways to help people in poverty. You can donate money to different organizations such as Free the Children. Did you know there are 1,000,000,000 people who live without access to fresh drinking water? Four water jugs filled with pennies equals $500. That’s enough to provide clean water to 20 people for life! We need to act now and create the change.