4 Important Points You Need To Know About Poverty

Today is Blog Action Day for Poverty. Everyone is invited to talk, to think and to do about Poverty…Rural Poverty, Urban Poverty or Global Poverty. We really have to do something about…it is a global issue.

1. What is Poverty?

Wikipedia.org said that Poverty is:

deprivation of common necessities that determine the quality of life, including food, clothing, shelter and safe drinking water, and may also include the deprivation of opportunities to learn, to obtain better employment to escape poverty, and/or to enjoy the respect of fellow citizens.

Princeton.edu said:

Poverty is the state of having little or no money and few or no material possessions.

Wiktionary.org defined Poverty as:

The quality or state of being poor or indigent; want or scarcity of means of subsistence; indigence; need; Any deficiency of elements or resources that are needed or desired, or that constitute richness; as, poverty of soil; poverty of the blood; poverty of ideas.

In short, poverty is the lack of basic necessities to live.

2. Effects of Poverty

Malnutrion

Lack of food, especially nutritious food results to malnutrition. Malnourished people, children and adults, looks very, very skinny, just like a bone covered with skin with bulging tummy. Malnourished persons are prone to all kinds of diseases as they have ineffective immune system.

Illiteracy

Due to poverty, people could not attend to school. As they have no food, shelter, clothing and other basic needs, they spend their lives scavenging or waiting for their end. They have no education to land a job. Many of them cannot read and write.

Homelessness

If people living in poverty cannot buy food and clothing, there is no way they can buy a home for their shelter. They roam in the streets, live under the bridge, sleep on the sidewalks and squat to vacant lots.

High Crime Rates

Poverty makes people commit crimes to survive. They rob and steal food and other valuable things, and sometimes they kill for their survival. Poor neighborhood have high crime rates.

More Street Children

Since the parents could not take care of them, the children loiter in the streets and try to survive on their own. Hence, they are called street children. These children are the normal victims of opportunists and brought to world of crimes at very young age.

High Beggary Rate

As they don’t have anything (no money to buy food, no education to find a job, no healthy body to work, no clothing to live normally), they just sit down on the busy areas ask for alms. They also beg from people in cars on the major thoroughfares.

3. Causes of Poverty

Corruption

The main cause of poverty is corruption in the goverments offices. Most of the major funds for the basic services for people are being pocketed by the few greedy officials. They are not concerned with their fellow countrymen, even with their country. They are only concerned about themselves and their families. Corrupt government officials normally break the law, destroy the environment and even kill their constituents for their own benefit.

War

Due to selfishness and greediness of few people, war breaks out and people’s money are used for the production or purchase of arms instead of building schools and giving health services. The victims are the innocent civilians, they lose their properties, investments, and sometimes the capabality to work. Hence, there will be less business and therefore less jobs. People that have no jobs will be deprived of opportunities to recover and grow.

Environmental Abuse

Many people abuse the natural resources, not thinking of the next generations. They are selfish and greedy who use unfair and unhealthy methods to have an advantage over other people. They cut logs without reforestation, they use insecticides, bombs or dynamites in fishing, they prefer to use a system that could result to mass destruction of the natural resources for their own interests. Due to this, the natural resources are abruptly depleted without recovering. Hence, next generations will have no resources to live.

4. How can you help?

As a person, you can make a difference by doing one or more of the following:

• Become an entrepreneur, build your own business and give jobs to people.
• Join poverty-awareness programs in your community, region, country and even through internet.
• Donate to charitable organizations that help alleviate the lives of the people.
• Adopt or sponsor a child through the charitable organizations for kids like the following:
  • Plan-International.org
  • FeedTheChildren.org
  • SaveTheChildren.org
  • EveryChild.org.uk
• Join your church in its community services especially teaching other people and kids about living a Christ-like life.
• Join the government and genuinely serve the people, not your pocket.

So, what are you waiting for? Join the Blog Action Day and fight Poverty!

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