Martes, Mayo 1, 2012


Poverty Around the World

Around the world, in rich or poor nations, poverty has always been present.
In most nations today, inequality—the gap between the rich and the poor—is quite high and often widening.
The causes are numerous, including a lack of individual responsibility, bad government policy, exploitation by people and businesses with power and influence, or some combination of these and other factors.
Many feel that high levels of inequality will affect social cohesion and lead to problems such as increasing crime and violence.
Inequality is often a measure of relative poverty. Absolute poverty, however, is also a concern. World Bank figures for world poverty reveals a higher number of people live in poverty than previously thought.

What is Poverty? How does poverty affects one's life and environment? How can we solve this kind of problem? As I have read the article, that were some of the questions formulated on my mind. First and foremost to understand such problem, I should give you a little definition of what poverty is.
 Poverty is the state or condition of having little money or no money, goods, or means of support; condition of being poor. 
            

                                                                                                                                                     
Exactly like the children in the picture. That is poverty. I am really bothered if I can see people like this. Why there are people like them? Who were responsible of these people? What are the effects of poverty?
As far as I know, people or should I say poor people do exist because of inequality. Rich people becomes richer and poor people becomes poorer. Many people says: "Life is unfair", but I am not convinced about this. Life isn't unfair. People are the one who were making it unfair. If we just know how to treat people equally as God treating us, maybe poverty isn't present in the world. As the article states, yes, government has a very great impact on people's lives. More often, it is the officials seated who were responsible of those people suffering from poverty. I know their jobs weren't that easy, but because they have chosen to be in that position, they should be willing also to take risk and to be a good leader as well as to be a fair and a person for others. Sometimes the effects of poverty may also be its causes. 
Here are some of the effects of poverty:
                                                                            HEALTH  
                                                
One third of deaths are due to poverty-related causes. Hunger and malnutrition are the single gravest threats to the world's public health.
                          
                      EDUCATION
Research has found that there is a high risk of educational underachievement for children who are from low-income housing circumstances. This often is a process that begins in primary school for some less fortunate children.     


HOUSING
      

Poverty increases the  homelessness. Slum-dwellers, who make up a third of the world's urban population, live in a poverty no better, if not worse, than rural people, who are the traditional focus of the poverty in the developing world according to a report by the United Nations. There are over 100 million street children worldwide.
                                                                      
           
                                   
                                                                          VIOLENCE
                                                 
According to experts, many women become victims of trafficking, the most common form of which is prostitution, as a means of survival and economic desperation. Deterioration of living conditions can often compel children to abandon school in order to contribute to the family income, putting them at risk of being exploited.

Nobody knows when this poverty would end. If only each one of us would know how to treat others fairly, and to think for them. Though I nor you can't stop this kind of problem, at least, together, we can lessen the problem.