I think, at some point in our lives, we all have been face to face with poverty. Call it the children we see on the streets of third world countries (like the one I am from), call it waking up to disasters like Katrina. Some people are oblivious about it, some others decide to ignore it, some want to help but don’t make an effort, and some spend their lives trying to do every little thing they can to make a difference.

Growing in Colombia, it was very common for me to see the very poor looking for a place to rest their head in the streets at night. When you’re a kid, you don’t understand it. I looked at them and I cried and asked my parents why they were people like that. To this day I still ask myself the same question, and I still have no answer for it. Who can we blame? And is there actually someone to blame?

I will never forget one day, many years ago, when my dad stopped to buy me an ice-cream. There was a little kid, dirty as dirty can be, he looked completely hungered, and I lost it there. When my dad came to the car with the ice-cream I refused to eat it and I broke in tears. My mom understood what was going on and asked me if I would like my dad to buy an ice-cream for the kid, so I said yes. In my little mind I thought that ice-cream was going to make it all better. To this day I still cry thinking of that story, and so does my mom. I was little, yet very aware of how much some people suffer.

And here I am crying and thinking what difference am I making? What am I doing for the poor? I try to give to charity, and I try to be aware. And sometimes I wish I had more to give, and I wish those who have so much would help more. But as long as the human kind is not educated and our eyes are not wide open, there won’t be a change.

So why not start today and join the Blog Action Day and donate to the Global Fund to Fight AIDS, Tuberculosis and Malaria? It’s a start, and there is so much to be done.