Poverty

Does it cost to be poor?’ – 1st president of Tanzania.
 
“The dignity and humanity of people even in situations that range from abject poverty to refugee camps and starvation” – this is what my piece will try and reflect.
 
Why can’t our world be equal? It is divided into two – those with and those without. Within this wide spectrum of division, we also find that each country has a similar problem.
 
The solution to poverty is quite simple and easy to ‘pin-point’ shall we say. It is the unwillingness and refusal of individuals around the world and their connecting government departments that prevents major development.
 
Governments are always receiving requests and demands for better facilities and an increase in funding to help those in dyer need of the bare necessities of food and water – the things we take for granted. However, they go on to more often than not decline. A lot of people who are lucky enough to have the luxuries of a weekly supply of food and water that they can just travel to the nearest store and purchase, say ‘That’s life, C’est la vie!’. Well NO it isn’t life and is far from the ideal living condition. No-one should have to suffer like those in the third world countries do.
 
Countries affected, to name a few, are:
 
Kenya:
 
• Suffer from rural poverty
• More than 15million poor people in Kenya
• Over the past 30years, poverty figures have risen.
• Poverty seems to be a paradox
• Kenya is a low-income country, with per capita income averaging about US $360.
 
Africa:
 
• One in six African children dies before the age of five. Most of these deaths could be prevented. (source: Africa 2015)
• Nearly one third of children in Sub-Saharan Africa are underweight. (source: UNICEF)
• 43% of children in Sub-Saharan Africa do not have safe, accessible drinking water. (source: UNICEF)
• 64% of children in Sub-Saharan Africa do not have adequate sanitation. (source: UNICEF)
 
As a result of such factors, the number of people living in extreme poverty in sub-Saharan Africa grew from 217 million in 1987 to more than 300 million in 1998.
 
Asia = Cambodia!
 
• 35.9% of Cambodians live below the national poverty line (the poverty line deemed appropriate for a country by its authorities) of US $0.45 = £0.22! per day
• Rural households account for nearly 90% of the countries poor.
• 36% of children under 5 years of age are moderately or severely under weight and 37% are under height for their age
 
The people of these countries are severely suffering beyond words I can type and 1 person dies every 3.5 seconds and unfortunately a majority are children. Why do people suffer in abject poverty on a daily basis, whilst others are going about their life filled with all their desired luxuries, without a care in the world of those less fortunate??

Every country has areas with low-income earners and the wealthier income earners yet the poor have to pay the riches taxes! I still, to this day do not understand the logic of that. The poorer people have little money as it is, without having to pay for other’s who can clearly fund themselves.

Victims of poverty crave food and water every day because they do not have enough and what they have is unclean and unhygienic. This is putting children more so than adults, in the line of great risk and danger and the consequences of this are: diarrhoea that is the main cause of dehydration. It kills 3,500 people a day!

www.poverty.com = this is one of the most powerful website’s I have ever found. It shows you second by second those dying from hunger, aids, pneumonia and many more in the ‘third world’ countries.

Poverty IS a serious problem and needs to be recognised and addresses by as many people as possible. Although, poverty happens everywhere all over the world and so a huge majority will know about it. They instead CHOOSE not to act upon it or help because they see it as: ‘why should I spend my money on those when I can spend it on something better’ – how appalling and indeed shocking is that!

• In Asia, Africa and Latin America for example; they survive on a bare $2 a day = £0.98!

How can this be? - when the minimum wage in the UK is £4.35 and in the USA $6! In my opinion, they should lower it and balance the costs out to increase the amount of money those in the poorer countries have to SURVIVE let alone work!

“Give them a hand to realise their dreams!”