President Roosevelt said as America joined the Allies in World War II “that he looked forward to a world where there was freedom from want” – ie no poverty.

Over 50 years later, the Millennium Development Goals set out to “halve the number of people living in poverty by 2015” – and progress so far has been patchy.

Christian Aid’s research says that more than 8,000,000 people die each year from abject poverty; half the world – nearly 3,000,000,000 people – has to live on less than £1 a day; hunger kills more people than Aids, malaria and TB put together; there are 2,200,000,000 children in the world, and 1,000,000,000 – almost half – live in poverty; and a child dies every five seconds because she or he is hungry.

We have all too often seen and still see distressing television pictures of poverty around the world.

But poverty is not a problem in the UK, in leafy Leamington – is it?

Well, sadly yes it is. Oxfam’s research says that in the UK nearly 13,000,000 people live in poverty – that’s 1 in 5 of the population; 3,600,000 children live in poverty; 2,200,000 pensioners live in poverty; and 7,200,000 working age adults live in poverty.

And Leamington has its share of these.

What does the Bible have to say about poverty? The Psalms and Proverbs describe a righteous person as one who “cares about justice for the poor”, “is generous and lends freely”, and “has scattered abroad his gifts to the poor”. Jesus calls his disciples to “give alms to the poor”, “feed the hungry”, clothe the naked”, and “welcome the homeless”.

In Leamington today, the Salvation Army and the Leamington Christian Mission are two of the agencies putting Jesus’ call into practice. But still there is poverty and injustice to be tackled.

If you feel moved to learn more about this, and to see if more can be done to help, please come along to the Forum about Poverty and Homelessness in Leamington which is at St Peter’s Church Centre, Dormer Place on Saturday (February 2) at 2pm.

l Read more stories about faith in the Mind and Spirit section of our website.

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