What does poor mean to you?

Here in America our idea of poor is still very blind to what most of the world would consider poor. Here a homeless person on the streets may still be receiving more food and money than countless citizens in parts of Africa. The Heavily Indebted Countries Initiative was created to help very poor countries by offering aid. In Africa 34 countries qualify for support from the HIC.

I want to look more specifically at the Democratic Rebulic of Congo. More than 70% of this country is below the poverty line, compared to 1 in 7 people in the US living below the povery line. These numbers are amazing to me, I have always known that Africa was poor and that its people struggled but to read these statistics really puts things into perspective. Many people, especially Americans tend to ignore the problems that the rest of the world is facing and this is so greatly hurting these poor countries. My fear is for the children of these areas who will possibly die before they have had much of a life to live. These children are being born into hard times and have no way to support themselves.

Below is a map to better illustrate the GDP levels throughout Africa.

http://web.worldbank.org/
https://www.cia.gov/library
http://articles.latimes.com/2010/sep/17/business/la-fi-poverty-census-20100917