African Poverty Should Make Us Think and Act

“Living on Pennies: The $10 Impossible Dream” July 20: Families should never face a choice between paying school fees and providing food for their children.

Yet this is exactly what is happening in many African countries. AIDS orphans are also not adopted for exactly this reason, school fees. When parents have difficulty getting their own kids to school, why would they take in another? When fees were dropped in Kenya, more than 1 million new students started school. The U.S. House of Representatives recently passed its 2005 foreign aid bill, which includes funds for a pilot program to aid in the elimination of school fees in poor countries. The Senate should quickly pass its version and the president should sign it so families no longer have to choose between education or food.

Willie Dickerson

Puyallup, Wash.

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What a disgrace that children in Africa, millions of whom have never been to school, are unable to go because their families cannot pay the $10 annual fee. How many children could be educated with the money that the United States has spent to date on the ill-conceived invasion and occupation of Iraq?

I am sickened by the increasing poverty in Africa while our multimillionaires here at home are getting huge tax cuts.

Margery Gould

Los Angeles

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We in affluent America profit from constant reminders of how most of the rest of humanity lives, and what a difference $10 directed in their direction will produce.

Please give us more snapshots of lives elsewhere on the globe, and how we can help.

Linda Vogel

Pomona