The Starving Boy And The Missionary Analysis

In the documentary “Poor Kids” you get to truly see and feel how it is to be a child that suffers from food insecurity, poverty and the rest that comes with it. The fact that this problem exists in a developed country that you would assume it could provide for all their citizens. Well, the reality is we have many families suffering because of lack food and on top of that, we have children suffering from lack and food and more. As a society, we have grown to just be concerned about ourselves and we don’t focus on issues that affect others. We fail to see the struggles of others because it doesn’t directly impact us. We are focused on attaining wealth at all cost we would rather waste food than provide help for the ones in need. Ultimately, we are creating policies that, make sure no one gives food to the ones that needed the most. It’s a sad reality that we must face in order to continue to strive as a nation. Therefore, we need to acknowledge others and provide them with the respect that they deserve. We also have many corporations and elites that have control, power, and wealth. The stratified system in the U.S is making it that much harder for lower-income families to come out of poverty. Not only are they suffering from lack of food, lack income, and resources, but this also is affecting their pride and self-worth.

“Poverty is the worst form of violence.” Mahatma Gandhi’s words still ring true in today’s society. Poverty is nothing to sweep under the rug or put on the back burner. While many statistics state that poverty is decreasing, other sources state the opposite. Poverty is a hot topic in the U.S., foreign countries, and speaks true about many genders, ethnic groups, and children.

The term poverty is often used when referring to third world countries like Sudan or Darfur. Painful images of families suffering from malnutrition are often the first thing that comes to mind. Yet, sadly, the same struggle is happening here in the U.S. and even worse, it’s happening right here in Ohio. The Columbus Dispatch reports that three years ago the state of Ohio was 12th in the nation for food insecurity because there were so many people who did not know where their next meal would come from. Now Ohio is ranked 6th in the nation for food insecurity. Many blame the troubles with the unemployment on the state’s difficulty recovering from the recession. Ohio’s poverty rate is rising as the national rate is leveling off (Candisky, 2011). According to the Ohio Poverty Report, Ohio’s individual and family poverty rate are lower than the nation’s average. Urban areas have higher rates but there are still people living in poverty in rural areas. Rates vary between characteristics and circumstances. Many families who receive cash assistance do not usually get out of poverty (Larrick, 2014)

The Townsend Centre for International Poverty Research conducted a study using data gathered from 46 developing countries to examine child poverty. The results found over a third of children lived in absolute poverty or in homes of more than five people.134 million 7-18 year olds lack basic education and over 375 million drink unsafe water. Civil war added to all of this makes for a hard existence  (Newbold et al.,

“What is poverty? Poverty is hunger. Poverty is lack of shelter. Poverty is being sick and not being able to see a doctor. Poverty is not having access to school and not knowing how to read. Poverty is not having a job, is fear for the future, living one day at a time. Poverty is losing a child to illness brought about by unclean water. Poverty is powerlessness, lack of representation and freedom” (The World Bank, 2009).

Men, women, and children are all coerced, regularly at gunpoint, to mine coltan. Both the novel Blue Gold by Elizabeth Stewart and the CBC News article, “Coltan: A New Blood Mineral” shine light on the influence coltan mining has on people residing in the Democratic Republic of Congo, and the western consumers callowness to it.

Based on the article “Changing the Face of Poverty” the issue that Diana George is responding to is poverty and its representation in the world. George first discusses how the nonprofit organization Habitat for Humanity tries to eliminate poverty by constructing houses for Americans who are suffering because of poverty. However, she states that the images which the nonprofit organization uses are pictures that try to “evoke the desire to give or to act, so that the benefactors don’t turn away” (George 240). These pictures may not completely depict all people who are suffering from poverty.

Most individuals know what poverty means; they are aware that there are people who live with almost nothing and struggle to get through each day. However, many, do not fully grasp the concept; they do not understand the extent to which poverty affects the quality of life of the minority. Before watching the documentary “Living on One Dollar”, I, too, was oblivious to the hardships individuals in poor areas of the world endure. This documentary opened my eyes to the reality these people face.

Why is it that whenever humanitarian aid is the topic of discussion amongst members of the American middle class, the peoples deemed most deserving of the United States’ efforts never reside within our borders? The United States Census Bureau reports that, in 2012, the official poverty rate was 15.0 percent. There were 46.5 million people in poverty. The only feasible path to accepting this staggering statistic as the reality of such a proud nation is by first acknowledging the accuracy of Barbara Ehrenreich’s (2001) premise as it is asserted in the final chapter of Nickel and Dimed: “Some odd optical property of our highly polarized and unequal society makes the poor almost invisible to their economic superiors” (p. 216). After we accept this as a truth, we must then move to analyze the methods by which this system is perpetuated. The exploitation and injustice against the American working class is seen starkly in the treatment of waitresses and practice of systematically forcing the poor to congregate in substandard living conditions.

People are suffering all around the world and are desperate for the help of those who can provide it. We as Americans can't even begin to comprehend the problems that people of Uganda experience in their daily lives. The struggles that they face derive from the fact that “51% of the Ugandan population lives on less than $1 a day” (Katie Davis Speaks). Many of the people in Uganda are uneducated and therefore unable to obtain jobs, resulting in a massive unemployment rate in Uganda. Without a job, it's nearly impossible for them to get the money they need to support themselves, much less an entire family. Most do not have easy access to some of the most basic necessities, such as food, water, and shelter. With poor living conditions and health

Within this nine-chapter, two-part book, author Paul Farmer single handedly both analyzed, and harshly critiqued the central and deeply rooted ideas of poverty throughout the world. In his book, Pathologies of Power, he tackles the daunting and largely misunderstood topic of poverty “to reveal the ways in which the most basic right-the right to survive- is trampled in an age of great affluence... (pg.6). Farmer, is both a professor of medical anthropology at Harvard, a doctor, and a founding director of Partners in Health, which is a global health organization that is concentrated in the most poverty-stricken areas to bring proper health care to those in need. These positions have allowed him to travel to some of the most underdeveloped areas in the world, with the largest portion of his time spent in Haiti. The experiences and observations that Farmer made in these locations provided him with a foundation of first-hand knowledge to come to the conclusion that the inequality toward the poor in terms of their basic human rights creates social violence, which is a

Since President Johnson’s ‘War on Poverty’ campaign in the 1960s, many public policies have been implemented to help people in poverty. The United States has the highest rate of poverty among all other industrialized nations (Komoro, Flay, & Biglan, 2011). Unemployment, social inequalities, health disparities, incarceration, housing and rates of impoverished children are just some of the social problems in poverty, and they are on the rise (Komoro, Flay, & Biglan, 2011).

Citizens live below the standards of economic and human development. I still remember walking and playing on unpaved streets and attending an educational establishment with no window, door, or even enough desks. Living in a small town with only one road to enter, which runs along the banks of a cliff. I was a small town girl, who grew up around devastating conditions.The vivid images feel like a movie screen divided into short scenes of poverty, violence, and lack of education that affects the population as a whole. There in Guatemala I thought about my present and my future as something inextricably tied to a rotten fate and decadent survival without opportunities for educational excellence. When I was 3 years my parents left and I was raised by my grandfathers and other family members. Even though water and food was always on our table the extreme levels of poverty were seen outside my house. Poverty rather than a situation became a way of life that arises as a result of the difficult access to resources to meet the basic needs of the population, such as food, housing, education, healthcare, and drinking

As our world settles for more poverty more and more complications are created, starting with the increasing death rate. As families get poor, it is difficult to sustain a livable life while taking care of others. They begin to die without adequate water and food, while bringing

Unfortunately, it was estimated that roughly 1.2 billion people in 1993 lived in extreme or absolute poverty, that which Robert McNamara regards “‘a condition of life so characterized by malnutrition, illiteracy, disease, squalid surroundings, high infant mortality and low life expectancy as to be beneath any reasonable standard of human dignity’” (Singer 219, 220). These estimates can be projected at nearly 2 billion today. A large majority of the people living in absolute poverty resides in underdeveloped countries. Among the nearly 4.4 billion people in these countries, “3/5 lives in societies lacking basic sanitation; 1/3 go without safe drinking water; 1/4 lack adequate housing; 1/5 are undernourished, and 1.3 billion live on less than $1 a day” (Speth 1).