Ethiopian Stats

Found this on a different blog last night and thought I should share. This is why Matt and I feel God is calling us to Ethiopia.

According to UNICEF, Poverty deprives children in their early years of life to adequate food, clean water, and medicine.
Startling stats:
• one out of every 20 children born alive die in their first month of life
• one out of ten die before reaching their first birthday
• one out of six die before reaching their fifth birthday

• According to the Embassy of Ethiopia, the country currently has a literacy rate of about only 33 percent. With a population of 65 million, 39 percent of the population lives below the poverty line. As disease spreads rapidly, more than 1.5 million people are infected with HIV/AIDS annually.
• Other Ethiopia Statistics:
  52% of children in Ethiopia are stunted because of malnutrition
  1.5 million people are infected with AIDS (6th highest in the world)
  720,000 children have been orphaned by AIDS alone, and there are 4.6 million orphans in Ethiopia
  
• 24% of the population of Ethiopia has access to safe drinking water (this includes the cities, the rural areas are - as you can imagine, much worse off)
  
• The median age in Ethiopia is 18 years
  
• In 2006, a mere 731 Ethiopian children were adopted by American families (do the math: of 4.6 million orphans in the country, this is far less than significant)
  
• Per capita, Ethiopia receives less aid than any country in Africa
  
• In the 90s the population (3%) grew faster than food production (2.2%)
  
• Drought struck the country from 2000-2002 (first year no crops, second year no seeds, third year no animals)
  
• Half the children in Ethiopia will never attend school
  88% will never attend secondary school
  
• Ethiopia's doctor to children ratio is 1 to 24,000
  
• In 1993, after 30 long years of war, Eritrea broke from Ethiopia and became an independent nation leaving Ethiopia landlocked without any major seafaring ports
• The average income in Ethiopia is less than $100/yr