Kenyans Urge World Leaders to End Poverty

Sarah Simpson wrote today about rallies in Kenyan for the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. I include an excerpt:

Thousands of mostly school age kids from the Nairobi slum of Korogocho gathered in a covered churchyard tucked amongst shambling tin houses for a morning of music and songs. It was their contribution to a 90 country, 24-hour campaign to end global poverty.

Event organizer, Sylvia Mwichuli, explained it was appropriate that most of the attendees were children, as poverty hits the youngest, hardest.

“Most families in the poorest slums across Africa do not even have access even to a meal a day,” she said. “And the worst affected, of course, are children.”

In 2000, world leaders from 189 countries signed up to the Millennium Development Goals – eight basic promises to slash poverty, tackle HIV and AIDS and increase access to education, amongst others, all by the year 2015.

The article also included quotes by Kenyan adults who say the government does not listen to them and address their needs. They say that the so-called democratic government there only addresses the people during election times.

Of course, the failure of democratically elected officials to care about the people’s concerns outside of election time affects most democracies throughout the world. Participatory democracy, in which the people vote more often on particular issues rather than just on electoral representatives, could help.

However, I doubt any government will do the job, as a result of the inherent inefficiency and corruption of government.

Instead, the people of the world need to find non-governmental solutions to poverty. We need to spark a global movement to end poverty that involves people organizing locally to fight poverty, by educating children and the uneducated and providing employment for the educated. The education must come with food, clothes, shelter, and healthcare. The employment must pay enough to pay for a lifetime’s worth of food, clothes, shelter, and healthcare.

If you have ideas about how to successfully fight poverty, or otherwise want to discuss these issues, please join the Hunger and Poverty Forums. It’s completely free, and all viewpoints are welcome.

Do Stand Up Against Poverty

L. Muthoni Wanyeki, the executive director of the Kenya Human Rights, recently wrote about an international call for action against poverty taking place tomorrow:

This Wednesday, October 17, marks the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. This year, once again, the Global Coalition Against Poverty is trying to make it into the Guinness Book of Records by ensuring the largest number of people across the world physically “stand up” to declare their commitment to ending poverty.

Symbolic movements, such as literally standing up in support of the fight against poverty, do not do much directly to actually end poverty. Nonetheless, it can help raise awareness and create opportunities for social networking by anti-poverty activists. Many major social movements have been sparked by symbolic and incidental protests. Take for example the Boston Tea Party and the Montgomery Bus Boycott.

Of course, we need to remember to follow these symbolic protests with direct action. We also need to get out and actually implement solutions to the poverty problem. If you have any ideas on how to fight poverty directly, I encourage you to join the World Hunger and Poverty Forums and share your ideas. It’s completely free.

Work-Education Houses

I completely believe we can end poverty by investing in education. We do not need any more charity, and charity alone will not end poverty.

Universally providing high-quality education to all children would end poverty. I believe we can best do this with student loans. Of course, the funding for education must include the students’ cost of living during their education years.

With the high-quality education they receive, the students will go on to get jobs (or start their own businesses) that earn them enough to support themselves and pay off their student loans.

Of course, poor adults pose a greater problem, because they generally do not have the time to go to school and have already become used to a lifestyle conducive to poverty. I suggest work-education programs. These programs would require that the person perform a certain amount of work, and in return the person would receive room, board, and education, with the goal of eventually having enough education to support themselves without the work-education program. That type of program would enable poor people to escape poverty and learn to support themselves, which contrasts to just giving poor people hand-outs. The work-education program would promote independence, hand-outs just promote dependence.

You can give me feedback on these ideas and discuss them in my Hunger and Poverty Forums. It’s completely free, and all viewpoints are welcome. Please join and share your ideas about world hunger and poverty.

The Reality of Poverty in the United States

I love an article by Alyssa Katharine Ritz Battistoni about American poverty. In it she makes a lot of great points poverty in the United States. One point that especially stuck out follows:

It’s much easier to dismiss poor people as undeserving, unsavory, crackheads, welfare queens–not like respectable middle-class Americans–than to acknowledge the enormous problems that continue to plague our society. What it really comes down to is not morality or work ethic but that some of us have sufficient resources to cushion us from our mistakes and others do not. For millions of Americans, one fluke event can turn a delicate balancing act into financial free-fall. And when the government doesn’t provide an adequate safety net, it’s a long way down to the bottom.

I agree! Perhaps to avoid guilt and excuse inaction, many people brush poverty off as a self-inflicted phenomenon. These people claim that poor people make themselves poor through laziness, bad decision-making, and other self-destructive behavior. While all of us–both poor and not–often make lazy, short-sighted, and self-destructive decisions, we must realize we do NOT live in a meritocracy. Many people do not receive the same opportunities, and instead get thrown extra obstacles, and this results in poverty. Take for example, the poor child born into an innercity ghetto without a father; the child must grow up around violence and drugs, and go to a substandard school; this child will most likely remain in poverty for the rest of his or her life.

We can fight poverty, not by giving free hand-outs to undeserving people, but by providing fair opportunity to those who have not received it.

Remember, millions of college graduates are poor in the United States, and millions of employed people are poor in the United States.

Community Service and Fresh Produce

I have been doing community service at Foodshare on Tuesdays and Thursdays. I have been working at a produce warehouse. The workers and I sort fruits and vegetables, mostly bagging them up while throwing out the bad ones.

Foodshare is a great organization, in my opinion. I knew before doing the community service that they are one of the most efficient charities in Connecticut. Along with America’s Second Harvest, they are one of my two favorite charities to give monetary donations. I say this so you understand my next comments are not meant to be against them.

While sorting through these fruits and vegetables, I notice that many our bad, and even the ones that we do not throw away aren’t always in perfect condition and may go bad before getting wherever they are going. It seems like a waste to me.

This experience has made me decide to support the use of non-perishables to fight poverty and hunger. I understand the desire to provide the hungry with healthy food to fulfill basic nutritional needs, but couldn’t products like V8 Juice be used instead of fresh fruits and vegetables? Such less-perishable foods wouldn’t rot, and would also be easier to handle and ship around. For example, canned and bottled foods can be kept and packaged easier, and they won’t break or become damaged as easily as fresh fruits and vegetables.

I’m sure Foodshare and similar organizations work with such less-perishable goods, including canned and bottled goods. I know that I just happen to be assigned to a specific warehouse for fresh produce. However, I now think that the less fresh produce is used, the better.

If you want to discuss the usage of fresh produce, or discuss this post, please join my Hunger and Poverty Forums. It’s completely free, and all viewpoints are welcome.

IUP Sociology Club Raises Poverty Awareness

Students from the Sociology Club at IUP dressed in ragged clothes and handed out informational flyers about poverty. The flyers included statistics from UNICEF research, such as the fact that 30,000 children die every day from hunger (more than the UN’s 18,000 estimate) and that half the world lives on less than $2 a day.

I like to see this. Universities are great places to raise awareness about poverty and organize anti-poverty efforts. Hopefully, even more students follow suit.

Even when not at a college, any one person or small group can look up some facts, print out some flyers, and hand them out.