Speaker Calls for Focus on African Poverty

New information from the World Bank indicates that nearly half of the world's population lives on less than $2 a day and 30,000 children die each day from hunger related diseases.

Those startling facts were presented by Andrew Syed Wednesday night at Missouri State University.

Syed is the founder of the "10-10 project" which works to combat those statistics by helping indigenous groups in Kenya. His keynote address was part of Missouri State’s Public Affairs Week.

Syed is calling for local organizations to engage in effective and relevant work for what's being called a global crisis.

"I feel it's important because it's a very interdependent world,” he said.  “No country or no individual nation is an island and so we work together and things in one side of the world impact things on the other side of the world."

Six students from Missouri State are heading to Africa to film a documentary about the poverty crisis.