On Thursday we heard from a young speaker, Siddhant Urunkar, a high school student at BASIS Peoria who is an Intern for The Borgen Project. The Borgen Project is a nonprofit advocacy organization with a mission to lobby for legislation and funds to fight international poverty. It was founded in 2003 by Clint Borgen

and is bipartisan. Our speaker has met with staff at both his Congresswoman's and Senator's offices to advocate for global poverty combating legislation and funding. He is tasked with raising $500 for The Borgen Project as part of his Internship.

 

His presentation touched on dispelling myths like, "The US already does too much for other countries". He informed us that less the 1% of the federal budget goes toward foreign aid and that the US falls behind other wealthy countries contributing just .2% of our GNP vs. and average of 07% of GNP. The Borgen Project believes that investing in higher living standards and lifting communities out of poverty alleviates overpopulation and resource scarcity. We also learned about studies addressing strife that can precipitate threats to the United States. When the world's poorest people only have local terror organizations to turn to for food, shelter and security those organizations become stronger. Higher living

standards for the world's poorest people helps on every level from national security to the mitigation of the spread of infectious disease.

 

Mission Statement: The Borgen Project believes that leaders of the most powerful nation on earth should be doing more to address global poverty. We're the innovative, national campaign that is working to make poverty a focus of U.S. foreign policy.

 

For more information on The Borgen Project visit their website at https://borgenproject/org