The Most Dangerous Place to Be Born

Every once in awhile I check out the CIA World Fact Book to get a glimpse of how well or not well things are going in our world. The World Fact Book reveled to me that the current most dangerous place for a baby to be born is Angola. Angola is a country that I know very little about and certainly one that does not make US news. But the statistics don't lie, they currently have the highest infant mortality rate, with 178 out of 1,000 infants dying before they reach age one (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2091rank.html). They also have the highest overall death rate in the world (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2066rank.html) and the lowest life expectancy at age 38.48 years (https://www.cia.gov/library/publications/the-world-factbook/rankorder/2102rank.html).

These statistics would certainly indicate that Angola is a very dangerous place to be born and they are most likely experiencing a orphan crisis. So where is all the attention? Most everyone has heard about the orphans of Ethiopia, the genocide in Rwanda, the civil war in the DRC so why don't we hear about Angola. There also seems to be a lack of humanitarian presence there. Neither World Vision or Compassion International, two of the largest child sponsorship organizations in the world have projects in Angola and neither does Heifer International. There may be a reason why that I don't know about, but I am posting this to do my part in spreading the word. I stumbled on a blog written by a family living in Angola. Their post here http://angolarising.blogspot.com/2010/01/angolas-orphans.html does a much better job then I can of explaining the orphan situation in Angola as well as how to help. You can also check out SOS Children's Villages' work in Angola at http://www.soschildrensvillages.org.uk/sponsor-a-child/africa/angola