Economic inequality is the result of a small percentage of humankind grabbing more than its share of the world's resources from the vast majority. Poverty and wealth have nothing to do with individual or group qualifications, or how hard people work. They are the result of skewed systems that over-reward some and under-reward others. Nearly half the world’s population, including one billion children, lives in poverty, and more than 1.3 billion in extreme poverty, defined as less than $1.25 a day.Over 750 million people don’t have access to clean drinking water, which causes 2300 deaths a day.One in nine people on earth is chronically undernourished. In 2011, 45% of all child deaths, nearly 1.4 million, were caused by lack of food. One in nine children is growing up in a war zone, and children make up of half of all refugees.This is the context within which we must work our transformation.
We cannot create any kind of meaningful justice in any realm without addressing this fundamental injustice.