I came across something interesting in my travels this week. Its’ called the Village of 100. I had never seen it before and I was shocked at some of the breakdowns. Here is it:
If we could reduce the world’s population to a village of precisely 100 people, with all existing human ratios remaining the same, the demographics would look something like this:
The village would have 60 Asians, 14 Africans, 12 Europeans, 8 Latin Americans, 5 from the USA and Canada, and 1 from the South Pacific
51 would be male, 49 would be female
82 would be non-white; 18 white
67 would be non-Christian; 33 would be Christian
80 would live in substandard housing
67 would be unable to read
50 would be malnourished and 1 dying of starvation
33 would be without access to a safe water supply
39 would lack access to improved sanitation
24 would not have any electricity (And of the 76 that do have electricity, most would only use it for light at night.)
7 people would have access to the Internet
1 would have a college education
1 would have HIV
2 would be near birth; 1 near death
5 would control 32% of the entire world’s wealth; all 5 would be US citizens
33 would be receiving — and attempting to live on — only 3% of the income of “the village.”

If you take a look at the world from this condensed perspective, the need for acceptance, understanding and education becomes evident.
Think of it!
If you woke up this morning with more health than sickness, you are luckier than the million that will not survive this week.
If you have never experienced a war, the loneliness of an imprisonment, an agony of tortures or a famine, you are happier than 500 million persons in this world.
If you are able to go to church, mosque or synagogue without fear of harassment, arrest, torture or death, you are happier than 3 billion persons in this world.
If there is a meal in your refrigerator; if you are dressed and have got shoes; if you have a bed and a roof above your head, you are better off than 75 percent of people in this world.
If your parents are still alive and still married, then you are a rarity.
If you have a bank account, money in your purse and there is some trifle in your coin box, you belong to 8 percent of well-provided people in this world.
What surprised me the most about this was the figures of those malnourished and those who could not read. We are so fortunate in this country. We have many opportunities available that others will never know.
Let me know what may have surprised you about this by e-mailing nspencer@delphosherald.com
The original version of the STATE OF THE VILLAGE REPORT by Donella H. Meadows was published in 1990 as “Who lives in the Global Village?” and updated in 2005.
The initial report was based on a village of 1,000. David Copeland, a surveyor and environmental activist, revised the report to reflect a village of 100 and distributed 50,000 copies of a Value Earth poster at the 1992 Earth Summit in Rio de Janeiro.