Bill Nye, Science Guy, Dispels Poverty Myths

Bill tells it like it is. If you're not familiar with these poverty and foreign aid facts, this two minute video is very educational. Spread it around. It's good for people to know.
(I originally saw this on Upworthy via Huff Post)

Today's Reality Check

"Sitting in the dirt, slum children attend class under an overpass in New Delhi. The free school is run by teachers Rajesh Kumar Sharma (left) and Laxmi Chandra (center)."
Photo: Altaf Qadri, Associated Press / SF

Today's Reality Check: Cholera in Haiti

A woman screams in agony in the back of a transport truck for the loss of her husband outside of St. Nicolas Hospital after a cholera outbreak hit the rural countryside October 22, 2010 in St. Marc, Haiti.

Photo: Frederic Dupoux / Getty Images

Today's Reality Check

 "A stray dog feeds puppies as she shares the space with street children who lie sleeping on the sidewalk in Katmandu, Nepal."

Photo: Gemunu Amarasinghe / AP

Today's Reality Check: Eating Dirt

"Dirt wafers: A woman makes "cookies" out of mud to sell in the Cite Soleil neighborhood of Port-au-Prince. The pies, made of dirt, salt and vegetable shortening, were already one of very few options for the poorest in Haiti even before the devastating Jan. 12 earthquake."

Photo: Rodrigo Abd / AP

Today's Reality Check: Child Labor

"Sweatshop boys: Twenty years after the U.N. adopted a treaty guaranteeing children's rights, Bangladeshi kids are still working in factories like this balloon workshop in Kamrangir Char. While fewer youngsters are dying and more are going to school, an estimated 1 billion still lack essential services."

Photo: Pavel Rahman / AP

Today's Reality Check

"Manna from heaven: Girls collect sorghum grain spilled from split bags that were airdropped over the village of Pochalla, Sudan. The United Nations World Food Program has resumed food airdrops into remote southern areas for some 155,000 people cut off by poor roads or regional conflicts."

More info about the UNWFP is here.

Photo: Peter Martell / AFP / Getty Images

Today's Reality Check

"No school today, or ever: Zubaida, an Afghan girl, holds her younger sister as she poses in Jalalabad, Nangarhar province. Eight years after the fall of the Taliban, most Afghan children--especially girls--still don't attend school and face the prospect of a life of poverty no different from their parents. Only about 13 percent of females over 15 years old can read or write -- compared to 43 percent for males."

Photo: Altaf Qadri / AP

Today's Reality Check

"Indonesians living under a bridge in Jakarta fish for floating plastic debris. It takes about a week for one person to collect 5 kilograms of plastic worth 10,000 rupiah - the equivalent of one dollar."

Today's Reality Check

"Shack attack: A couple confronts a demolition crewman before he tears down their shanty home in Las Pinas, Philippines. Hundreds of residents fought police and demolition workers as their slum homes were bulldozed to make way for a subdivision expansion."

So much for trickledown.

"Home from Hollywood: After appearing at the Oscars, "Slumdog Millionaire" child actor Azharuddin Mohammed Ismail is back at his home in Bandra, suburban Mumbai, having dinner with his mother."

Today's Reality Check

Miners carry loads of sulphur out of the crater of the Kawah Ijen Volcano in East Java. They will trek over five miles from the crater to a collection center with loads weighing between 110 and 220 pounds. For the effort, they earn the equivalent of $7 a day.

Today's Reality Check

"Desperate days in Zimbabwe: Starving families pick up individual corn kernels spilled on the roadside outside Harare by trucks hauling maize corn imported from South Africa."