Global 100 Village

I attended a seminar titled "Internal Controls for Corporate Governance" yesterday (courtesy of my firm). There was a very impressive speaker, Patricia Bader-Johnston who is currently with IBM. I liked her delivery but I think most of her little jokes were lost on the Japanese audience which would be very disconcerting for me if I were the speaker!

Anyway, her topic was on corporate social responsibility and she brought up the Global 100, which you may have already seen making its way round the e-mails. If the world were to be reduced to 100 people, this is what the village of 100 people would look like:

The Global 100 village:

• 80 people are poor and live in substandard housing
• 41 live without basic sanitation
• 13 suffer from malnutrition
• 50 have never used a telephone and are unable to read
• 10 have access to a computer

I have 3 working computers at home (another 2 in storage to be dumped), numerous phones, heated towel rails that keep my towels nice and crisp in winter (although they are on the whole year through!), hot water......

That really puts things into perspective, doesn't it? Although I have seen the above Global 100 village stats before, it is always good to take a pause in my life to appreciate what I have and count my blessings.