When some of us fall sick and feel ill we go to hospital.
When most of us get sick, we just have to hope we get better.
For those of the developed countries there is always option one,
And for the underdeveloped world there is mostly just hope.

Such is the imbalance of the one world where we all live,
A few, really very few indeed who belong to rich countries
Get far more than the fair share of all things good –
Food, housing, education,· good public health services.

If you were born on the left hand shoulder of God Almighty,
And like the vast majority, live in a very poor country,
You will get far less than a fair share of the good things –
And you will starve for food, housing, schools and hospitals.

Sorrowing, sighing, and dying – more than twenty thousand daily
They were bright and happy and someone’s beloved child.
Killer diseases for a constitution weakened by constant hunger,
But we rich and happy few do not lose our children this way.

People with great hearts who demonstrate compassion in action
Make the difference in that part of the world where it is Apocalypse!
Famine, Pestilence, War and Death – the too familiar horsemen
Who can be faced down because caring and concern will bring change.

All those enormous numbers, enormous, sense numbing figures
And to that faculty for horror which should be crying out, screaming –
So that we cannot visualise over twenty thousand children dying daily
Twenty thousand separate, different children – a thousand an hour.

A thousand an hour little children, flesh, blood and stark reality
The richest resource of earth,’irreplaceable and desperately needed
And they die – malnutrition will admit every imaginable ill
But at S.C.F. we care, we care desperately and we are doing something.

No one is laying blame on anyone because the rains failed –
El Nino had a strange effect in Australia Felix this special year
The Whole of London’s average annual rainfall (where it always rains!)
Fell in parts of New South Wales in normally pleasant April.

When the seasons follow in their appointed way and even Hanrahan
Claims to have had enough of whatever the season should bring,
Then all the benefits of long term mother/child health care come
And we all rejoice at the learning, knowledge and the skill.

But when those four ghastly horsemen ride through the land
What chance for anything other than emergency hand out help,
For this alone will sustain life until conditions change –
And these are people who never lose dignity in face of adversity..

Please help us to make things better for the families who battle
Australians understand the battlers and for most folk on earth
Life is a constant struggle and things we take for granted – luxury.
Just a little of all you have makes such a difference somewhere to someone.

Pam Barrington MBE