Fabio Mendez: The Children of the World

Fabio Mendez: The Children of the World Fabio Mendez is deeply concerned about the plight of the children of the world. There have been great strides forward in many areas involving children's health, but as he knows, there is still much to be done. Millions of children around the world do not know where their next meal is going to come from, or whether it will even come at all; it is a heart-breaking and horrifying reality that he finds intolerable, and in need of immediate attention.

Fabio Mendez puts his resources where his mouth is, and he believes that some of these actions have made a difference. "I have helped in the awareness and involvement in educating children and youth," he says. "By equipping them with the knowledge they need and inspiring them to excel, today's children and youth will become tomorrow's leaders, and take pride in the successes they have achieved."

Still, there is much to be done, and Fabio Mendez knows this all too well. According to the United Nations International Children's Fund (UNICEF), some 1.4 billion people live in abject poverty, surviving on less than $1.25 per day. This inevitably means starvation and disease, miserable living conditions, poor sanitation, and limited or no access to education and medical care. Children are particularly at risk in such conditions. According to UNICEF, more than twenty thousand children die each and every day due to poverty.

Many of those thousands of children who die every day perish because of diseases they contracted through contaminated drinking water or unsanitary facilities. The World Health Organization says that it would cost about eleven billion dollars a year for clean water and sanitation worldwide; their figures point out that in comparison, people in the United States spend about $450 million every year on Christmas celebrations.

For some countries, polio remains a very real threat to children. Polio has been wiped out in most of the West, and was declared officially eradicated in the United States in 1979. But in Afghanistan, Nigeria and Pakistan, the disease is still ravaging children.

These are just some of the health issues that still threaten the children of the world, although they only represent some of the most critical. Fabio Mendez believes that all of the world's children must be protected – for their own good, and for the good of the planet. "They must experience heartwrenching pain in a society that seems to spotlight the affluent while overlooking the contributions of the less fortunate," he says. "I would like to think that we play an active role in demonstrating that someone cares about them."