The United Youth Committee of the World

One of the most serious issues nowadays is the problem of AIDS. Youths are even more affected. Here are some statistics:
Through 1996, an estimated 29.4 million people worldwide had been infected with HIV, of whom approximately 8.4 million have developed AIDS. 
Currently, an estimated 21.8 million adults and 830,000 children worldwide are living with HIV/AIDS. 
Approximately 42 percent of the 21.8 million adults living with HIV/AIDS worldwide are women; this proportion is growing. 
An estimated 3.1 million new HIV infections occurred worldwide during 1996, that is, approximately 8,500 infections each day -- 7,500 in adults and 1,000 in children. 
By the year 2000, an estimated 40 million people worldwide will be HIV-infected, 90 percent of them in developing countries. 
Through 1996, cumulative HIV/AIDS-associated deaths worldwide numbered approximately 5 million among adults and 1.4 million among children. 
In 1996 alone, HIV/AIDS-associated illnesses caused the deaths of approximately 1.5 million people worldwide, including an estimated 350,000 children. 
By the year 2000, an estimated 5 to 10 million children under 10 years of age will be orphaned worldwide because of the premature deaths of HIV-infected parents. 
Worldwide, more than 75 percent of all adult HIV infections result from heterosexual intercourse. 
Mother-to-child (vertical) transmission has accounted for more than 90 percent of all HIV infections worldwide in infants and children.

Source: www.healthsquare.com

 Videos on HIV/AIDS:

Videos Curtesy of Product (RED)

Video Curtesy of Doctors without Borders

To find out more, visit these websites:

http://www.aids.org/

http://www.joinred.com/

http://www.unaids.org/

http://www.mdm-international.org/

Fumes               Fossil Fuels               Endangered Species
             Factories            Cars          

Lack of Trees
                            H U M A N I T Y
 

Greenhouse gases: Carbon Dioxide levels in the Earth's atmosphere have increased by 30% in the last 200 years alone. Concentrations of greenhouse gases in the atmosphere are currently at their highest for 800,000 years.

Temperatures: Global temperatures have risen by over 0.7C since the 1700s with 0.5C of this warming occurring during the past 100 years. The warmest decade of the last millennium was the 1990s with four out of five of the warmest years ever recorded occurring during the decade. 1998 was the warmest year globally since records began in 1861. 1999 was the warmest year on record in the UK.

Water: Average global sea levels have increased by between 0.1 and 0.2 metres over the last 100 years as a result of heavier rainfall, melting artic ice sheets and water expanding due to warmer temperatures. The frequency and severity of drought conditions has increased in Asia and Africa in the past few decades.

Predictions: The Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) predicts a probable global temperature rise of between 1.8C and 4C (3.2-7.2F) by the end of the century if current levels of greenhouse gas emissions continue.

Human activities: The world population has grown by more than 2.5 times in the past 55 years from 2.5 billion in 1950 to 6.45billion in 2005. Global energy demands are projected to rise by as much as 60% in the next 20 years as a result of continued population growth and economical, commercial and social development.

Source: BigGreenSwitch.com

Videos on the Environment

Video Curtesy of U.K. Climate Challenge

Videos Curtesy of the ACT NOW Campaign

You can do something! You can become an activist, a volunteer or donate or even try to "wake up" the awareness of people, by visiting the following sites:
Greenpeace
WWF

1 ...........2 ........3........                                                                                      A child has died somewhere in Africa
Poverty is one of the "Top" issues that need to be solved in the 21st Century. Here are some statistics about Poverty around the world:

1. Half the world — nearly three billion people — live on less than two dollars a day.
2. The GDP (Gross Domestic Product) of the poorest 48 nations (i.e. a quarter of the world’s countries) is less than the wealth of the world’s three richest people combined.
3. Nearly a billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their names. 
4. Less than one per cent of what the world spent every year on weapons was needed to put every child into school by the year 2000 and yet it didn't happen.
5. 51 percent of the world’s 100 hundred wealthiest bodies are corporations. 
6. The wealthiest nation on Earth has the widest gap between rich and poor of any industrialized nation. 
7. The poorer the country, the more likely it is that debt repayments are being extracted directly from people who neither contracted the loans nor received any of the money. 
8. 20% of the population in the developed nations, consume 86% of the world’s goods. 
9. The top fifth of the world’s people in the richest countries enjoy 82% of the expanding export trade and 68% of foreign direct investment — the bottom fifth, barely more than 1%. 
10. In 1960, the 20% of the world’s people in the richest countries had 30 times the income of the poorest 20% — in 1997, 74 times as much. 
11. An analysis of long-term trends shows the distance between the richest and poorest countries was about:
    • 3 to 1 in 1820
    • 11 to 1 in 1913
    • 35 to 1 in 1950
    • 44 to 1 in 1973
    • 72 to 1 in 1992 
12. “The lives of 1.7 million children will be needlessly lost this year [2000] because world governments have failed to reduce poverty levels”
13. The developing world now spends $13 on debt repayment for every $1 it receives in grants. 
14. A few hundred millionaires now own as much wealth as the world’s poorest 2.5 billion people. 
15. “The 48 poorest countries account for less than 0.4 per cent of global exports.” 
16. “The combined wealth of the world’s 200 richest people hit $1 trillion in 1999; the combined incomes of the 582 million people living in the 43 least developed countries is $146 billion.”
17. “Of all human rights failures today, those in economic and social areas affect by far the larger number and are the most widespread across the world’s nations and large numbers of people.” 
18. “Approximately 790 million people in the developing world are still chronically undernourished, almost two-thirds of whom reside in Asia and the Pacific.” 

19. According to UNICEF, 30,000 children die each day due to poverty. And they “die quietly in some of the poorest villages on earth, far removed from the scrutiny and the conscience of the world. Being meek and weak in life makes these dying multitudes even more invisible in death.”

    That is about 210,000 children each week, or just under 11 million children under five years of age, each year.

Source: http://www.globalissues.org

Duchenne Muscular Dystrophy is the number one genetic killer of children worldwide. It is a disease that affects children's muscles. Around the age of ten they lose the ability to walk and usually die in their late teens or early twenties. There is a non-profit organisation called "Darius Goes West", which raises funds for the researches of this terrible disease. This organisation wants help and support from anywhere and everywhere

This Video Clip explains the whole situation: