Numbers don't lie...

I was visiting one of my most favorite crafty blogs today (How about orange?) and saw these awesome (in a sad way) t-shirts by StatAttak.

The story behind them (in a very small nutshell) is that the folks at StatAttak saw some statistics on life expectancy in various African countries and were shocked. They decided to spread the word via these t-shirts, then use a portion of the proceeds to go and build an orphanage. It almost seems like a shame to spread the word about something so devastating with such a hip tshirt.

It looks like there's not an Ethiopia t-shirt yet, but I think I might possibly know a few people who would buy one :) so my next task will be emailing them some statistics about Ethiopia. Maybe you'd like to encourage them as well? If so, email support@statattak.com

• One in ten children die before their first birthday
• One in six children die before their fifth birthday
• 44% of the population of Ethiopia is under 15 years old
• 60% of children in Ethiopia are stunted because of malnutrition
• The median age in Ethiopia is 17.8 years
• 1.5 million people are infected with AIDS (6th highest in the world)
• 720,000 children have been orphaned by AIDS alone, and there are 4.6 million orphans in Ethiopia.
• Per capita, Ethiopia receives less aid than any country in Africa
• In the 90s the population (3%) grew faster than food production (2.2%)
• Drought struck the country from 2000-2002 (first year no crops, second year no seeds, third year no animals)
• Coffee prices (Ethiopia’s only major export) fell 40-60% from 1998-2002.
• Half the children in Ethiopia will never attend school. 88% will never attend secondary school.
• Ethiopia’s doctor to children ratio is 1 to 24,000.