"Our Day to End Poverty: 24 Ways You Can Make a Difference" - notes by Lallie Lloyd

I just picked up "Our Day to End Poverty: 24 Ways You Can Make a Difference" by Shannon Daley-Harris and others (2007, published by Berrett Koehler) and recommend it as an addition to our EGR MDG resource list.

The book describes the urgency and mobilizing power of the MDGs and emphasizes learning, contributing, serving and living as every-day activities where we continuously make choices – choices that can be informed by a commitment to end poverty.

The book’s twenty-four chapters are organized in three sections -- morning, afternoon and evening – that follow what might be a typical day: thinking about food, kids’ schooling, and fair wages for a day’s work in the morning; taking care of health care, housing, technology and micro-credit in the afternoon; and focusing on community, transportation, clean water and advocacy in the evening. This is a nice way to break down and personalize a long list and situate it in the everyday-ness of our lives.

This book is not a sit down and read book; it’s more like a cook book, but it is an excellent resource for diocesan MDG contacts or committees, people who speak and teach about the MDGs and anyone who wants to be prepared to answer the question, “But what can I DO?”