Poverty Essay, Research Paper

Poverty is hunger. Poverty is lack of shelter. Poverty is being sick and not being able to see a doctor. Poverty is not being able to go to school, not knowing how to read, not being able to speak properly. Poverty is not having a job, fear for the future and living one day at a time. Poverty is loosing a child to illness brought about by unclean water. Poverty is powerlessness, lack of freedom

Poverty has many faces, changing from place to place and across time, and has been described in many ways. Most often poverty is a situation people want to escape. So poverty is a call to action for the poor and the wealthy alike a call to change the world so that many more may have enough to eat, adequate shelter, access to education and protection from violence.

Unfortunately, poverty is often an invisible problem. The voices of the poor are seldom heard. And what makes me feel like writing about poverty is the unwillingness of our society to deal with this preventable problem and how politicians who rule the country pretend that poverty is simply a given human existence a force of nature unstoppable and eternal.

In fact what makes a good life? Material and physical well-being, security, freedom of choice and action the very things that bring joy to human existence, all make a good life. It is living healthy and peaceful lives in love with no hunger; no worrying about the future of children that brings the principal pleasures of everyday life.

Physical health, strength and appearance are of great importance to the poor. The body is poor people s main asset, but one with no insurance. If it deteriorates, hunger and destitution hover at the doorstep. Shortage of food and sickness not only cause pain, they weaken and devalue the asset, make a person highly vulnerable. Illness can plunge a household into destitution. Anguish and grief over watching loved ones die because of lack of money for health care is a silent crisis of poverty.

Bad life is deeply embedded in insecurity. Not knowing what tomorrow will bring and where the next meal is coming from slowly drives poor people crazy. It is the way that security brings peace of mind and confidence in survival. Not just livelihood but also sheer physical survival in the face of rising corruption, crime, violence and absence of justice. Insecurity is also the experience of worry and fears, and makes life unstable and uncertain.

The poor are caught in a trap of powerlessness that constrains their choices it is that they have no freedom of choice and action because the rich are the ones who say: I m going to do it and they just do it. But poor people cannot control what happens they do not fulfil their wishes because of poverty. While kept in a biological level of existence, focusing on food and shelter one cannot enjoy everyday life.

Together all these disadvantages not only hold poor people down, they make them vulnerable to losing even what they have. There is usually nothing to prevent them from falling into the abyss. And when they do fall there is often nobody waiting to catch them in the bottom. And it s the criminality of it all even wild animals are capable of fending for themselves but a person saddled with poverty isn t able to. Hasn t the society been designed to protect individuals? Didn t we get beyond merely eating and breading and move to what is called human civilization ?

Still some may say I don t have the right to discuss on that topic any further because fortunately I ve never fallen asleep hungry but nature of poverty is a human rights issue and aren t we all humans? It seems not.