Keep Score - See the Progress

One of the important reasons for keeping a social justice scoreboard of sorts is this: we need to see our progress. We have to see how we are doing. We have to see if we are beating these problems or if they are growing. We have to see how we are doing in this fight. So we need to keep score.

Think about it: how are we doing right now? Are there more people starving in the world this year than last year? Are there more people dying of AIDS in the world this year than last year? Are the numbers growing or are they decreasing? We need to define the problem (the number of people that we need to help), and then we need to define our progress (if the number of people that we need to help is going up or down).

With as much money and publicity as some of these problems get, we really have no idea if we are actually making a difference or not. The ONE campaign has a mission of "making poverty history". They have all kinds of celebrities and all kinds of cool commercials and merchandise and things like that. And, really, they are doing a great job of awareness and of marketing. Seriously, I am behind them 100%. But, how are they doing though? Is poverty ending? Has it even gone down?

We need to have a social justice scoreboard so that we know how we are doing in this fight against social ills and social injustices. We need to know our progress.

We have to define the problem, and we have to know how we are doing against it.