Poverty, and calls to end it, date back centuries. Even in prosperous modern times, despite the huge transformation of society, poverty has persisted. This book looks back at the struggle to end poverty and asks if it is worth it.

Our Day to End Poverty invites us to look at the twenty-four hours in our very ordinary days and to begin to think about poverty in new and creative ways. The authors offer scores of simple actions anyone can take to help eradicate poverty. Each chapter takes a task we undertake during a typical day and relates it to what we can do to ease the world's suffering. We begin by eating breakfast, so the first chapter focuses on alleviating world hunger....

In New England in the late nineteenth-century, a fatherless family, happy in spite of its impoverished condition, is befriended by a very rich gentleman and his young son.

The end of poverty? is a daring, thought-provoking and very timely documentary by award-winning filmmaker, Philippe Diaz, revealing that poverty is not an accident. It began with military conquest, slavery and colonization that resulted in the seizure of land and other natural resources as well as in forced labor. Today, global poverty has reached new levels because of unfair debt, trade and tax policies -- in other words, wealthy countries exploiting...

"[The author] takes us into the poorest neighborhoods of Milwaukee to tell the story of eight families on the edge. Arleen is a single mother trying to raise her two sons on the 20 dollars a month she has left after paying for their rundown apartment. Scott is a gentle nurse consumed by a heroin addiction. Lamar, a man with no legs and a neighborhood full of boys to look after, tries to work his way out of debt. Vanetta participates in a botched stickup...

With his latest play Good People, David Lindsay-Abaire returns to Manhattan Theatre Club where four of his previous works were produced, including his 2007 Pulitzer Prize-winning Rabbit Hole. The play premiered there in winter 2011 in a production directed by Daniel Sullivan (who also directed Rabbit Hole), and featuring Frances McDormand in the role of protagonist Margie Walsh. Good People is set in South Boston, the blue-collar neighborhood where...

"Maren Walker dreams of finding her own little door. The doors have appeared to the people in her mountain town for as long as anyone can remember, though no one knows where they lead. Maren's mother was the last to go through, leaving nine-year-old Maren behind. Now living with her grandmother, Maren deals prescription medication to pay their bills and nurture her dream of becoming a nurse. When she faces the possibility of escaping her struggles...

The nearly three billion people living on $2 a day are not just the world?s greatest challenge?they represent an extraordinary market opportunity. The key is what Paul Polak and Mal Warwick call Zero-Based Design: starting from scratch to create innovative products and services tailored for the very poor, armed with a thorough understanding of what they really want and need and driven by what Polak and Warwick call?the ruthless pursuit of affordability.?...

This award-winning documentary is a tool to help empower the extreme poor to take the first steps out of poverty. The film follows the story of four young friends who set out to live on just one dollar a day for eight weeks in rural Guatemala. They battle hunger, parasites and the realization that there are no easy answers. Yet, the generosity and strength of Rosa, a 20 year old woman, and Chino, a 12 year old boy gives them resilient hope that there...

Indigo is a boy with a dream. He spends his mornings in a refrigerator box, his afternoons shoveling snow, and his nights in the basement of a homeless shelter. But during every free moment, he draws and dreams of becoming a famous artist. His best friend Jade looks after him, but she is arrested for shoplifting and he's left all alone. With his box of pencils under his arm, he sets out on a quest to search for Jade and discovers a whole new world...