Blog Action Day: Poverty
Oct. 15th, 2008 06:23 pm![[personal profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/silk/identity/user.png){kind=small}
rxelynPrevious year's Blog Action Day can be found at ![[livejournal.com profile]](https://www.dreamwidth.org/img/external/lj-userinfo.gif)
ravenxeve
image by Neil T
Poverty, as defined by dictionary.com:
This year's topic for Blog Action Day is Poverty, and I find myself debating to myself, because just what do I know about poverty? No matter how much I may bemoan about my poor financial status and wish for money to drop from the sky, I'm not exactly in any situation to complain. I get my weekly allowance every week without fail, I regularly dispose of food that I cannot finish, I buy new clothes when my old clothes work just fine. And yet, maybe in some other country, or even in Singapore alone, there will be others who cannot even afford half of what I have. Indeed, life has been kind to me.
I won't delve into much details, since all these can be read up if people are just willing to take the time to read books and magazines (Newsweek September 2008 issue) or even use wikipedia, but generally, causes of poverty includes environmental factors, poor governance, social problems, failing economics and the list could go on. Poverty does not only affect developing countries, developed countries have cases of extreme poverty as well.
While the world, upon seeing the destructive nature of poverty, has taken measures like UN setting the Millennium Development Goals for poverty reduction back in 2000, this target was barely met, and this was after being bulked up by China's rapid development. I think that there is more that we can do, through donating to charities, raising awareness. It may not be much, but just a contribution from every one of us can amount to a considerable sum. We cannot hope to eradicate poverty, but we can try to aid those who are fighting for this noble cause.
may be edited at a later date
ravenxeve image by Neil T
Poverty, as defined by dictionary.com:
| 1. | the state or condition of having little or no money, goods, or means of support; condition of being poor; indigence. |
| 2. | deficiency of necessary or desirable ingredients, qualities, etc.: poverty of the soil. |
| 3. | scantiness; insufficiency: Their efforts to stamp out disease were hampered by a poverty of medical supplies. |
This year's topic for Blog Action Day is Poverty, and I find myself debating to myself, because just what do I know about poverty? No matter how much I may bemoan about my poor financial status and wish for money to drop from the sky, I'm not exactly in any situation to complain. I get my weekly allowance every week without fail, I regularly dispose of food that I cannot finish, I buy new clothes when my old clothes work just fine. And yet, maybe in some other country, or even in Singapore alone, there will be others who cannot even afford half of what I have. Indeed, life has been kind to me.
I won't delve into much details, since all these can be read up if people are just willing to take the time to read books and magazines (Newsweek September 2008 issue) or even use wikipedia, but generally, causes of poverty includes environmental factors, poor governance, social problems, failing economics and the list could go on. Poverty does not only affect developing countries, developed countries have cases of extreme poverty as well.
While the world, upon seeing the destructive nature of poverty, has taken measures like UN setting the Millennium Development Goals for poverty reduction back in 2000, this target was barely met, and this was after being bulked up by China's rapid development. I think that there is more that we can do, through donating to charities, raising awareness. It may not be much, but just a contribution from every one of us can amount to a considerable sum. We cannot hope to eradicate poverty, but we can try to aid those who are fighting for this noble cause.
may be edited at a later date
