Tuesday, February 20, 2007

Poverty in Developing Countries

According to Poverty.com, many people die because of hunger and homelessness. Actually, 25,000 people die each day because of this reasons, this means that every 3 and a half seconds someone dies. However, most of this people are children. Although many people die because of hunger, inreality, there's enough food all over the world, but the problem is that many people have a lack of money, so they aren't able to buy it. Because they don't eat, they don't get energies, so they get each time weaker and weaker so they end up dying.

However, there are some ways in which these things are solved. There are two programs which help to solve this problem. For adults, there is "food for work." It consists on diging and building things, but instead of getting paid with money, they are paid with food. For children, there's a program called "food for education." This one consits of giving food and education to children. If they get well educated, they can work, and this makes them go out of poverty.

I am especially interested, as I told you before, on poverty on kids, but also in poverty on developing countries. A developing country is a country that has low economy, low way of living etc. Sometimes, the government of the country affects if it is poor or not. A developing government is the government of a developing country. If the government is poor, the country has more probabilities to have poor people. Also, if the country is a developing nation, it has poorer people because there is less advances and less jobs. Developing nations are reguarly called "South." This is so because most of them are located in the Southern Hemisphere. Often, in developing countries there's 'corruption'. This means that some judges or policemen take off bribes to rich people, so obviously this affect the poor. Also, there's worser corruption. In the government this happens too, but much more worse and with huge amount of money. Another fact that doesen't let poor people get our of that problem is the lack of opportunities and jobs.

In developing countries, many people die because of many diseases. Some of these include diarrhea. This disease is mostly caused to poor people in developing countries. It is an infectious disease that works in the intestines and can dehydrate you and can lead you to death. Also, many people die because of eating unsecure food. This means that the food or water isn't cleaned in order to be eaten or drinken. Definetely, the disease that kills the most is Aids/HIV. This disease affects the most in Africa, which is the poorest continent, so the poorer the place, the most it atacks on. Finally, a very dangerous disease also, Malaria. This disease is spread by mosquitoes and it kills millions of people yearly.

"An absolute poverty defines poverty as the state of living under a certain,
pre-determined amount of income or consumption. The most common absolute poverty
line is the $1-a-day line."


What I think about poverty in developing countries is very simple. Obviously, developing countries are poorer than developed countries, so the have more poor people. Also, that the people aren't wise enough. Some causes are caused by the same people of the affected country. If they know that being corrupt will cause more harm in your city or country, why do they make it? They need to realize that being rich isn't the only thing in the world. Yes, its true, people need to be able to afford some things, but I think that is isn't fair that while some people are starving in one place, others are going shoping in another place.

I could finally research about developing countries. Still, I want to research on poverty in Cartagena. Maybe, this may not be posible because I didn't find enough resources and I could only do it on my observations, but the schools from other countries can't observe this.

Saturday, February 17, 2007

Helping Poor Kids

Poverty is not having enough resources for someone to live, living in very bad conditions, and suffering a lot. This is what millions of people around the world are suffering from. This is happening all around the world, but especially in Africa. While I was researching, I found out that the poorest countries in the world, are located in Africa. Mali, Niger, Ethiopia, Congo, Tanzania, and Malawi are just some of the poorest countries in the world.

I also took a look at other resources. Grameen Foundation is a foundation fighting agains poverty. Their goal is to push poor people out of poverty with dignity. This foundation works in: Latin America and the Caribbean, Africa, South Asia, and East Asia. This foundation works with microfinance. This is small loans from different companies in order to be able to help the poor people. An example seen in this webpage is that if a woman borrows $50 to buy a chicken soon she'll have many eggs, so she will be able to sell the other chickens born and have more money.

Another website I looked at was one called: Child Poverty. Right now, in many countries, many people live under $2 per day. Poverty is not only affecting poor countries, developed countries are also being affected by this. 1 of every 10 people in a rich country suffer from poverty. However, in developing countries this is worse. Poverty populations are garder to adapt to changes, and have a lack in education. Meanwhile, better educated populations can adapt to changes easier and faster. Poor children end up very sick because they aren't able to pay medical resources. If a country spends some money in helping a poor kid, it sabes more because the child will not get sick.


What is Child Poverty?
Child poverty is a significant lack of the basic
needs required for healthy
physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual
development. Child poverty is also
defined as a lack of opportunities
(capability deprivation), a lack of control
over one’s life, as social
isolation and as discriminatory treatment at the
hands of others.


Poverty is categorized as a lack of: food, education, and medical resources. About 650 million people live in poverty conditions around the world. This is something very sad, and each time the number grows more. Also, about 14 million kids about under 5 die each year because of poverty conditions. Some people think that poverty is only seen in develping countries. Unfortunadely, this is not true. Canada, which is a developed country, and ranked the best one to live in by some people has each time more poverty. It is very sad that a wonderful country like this one, is loosinf control under poverty.

Finally, and look at a last website. It was called Who are America's Poor Children? In the U.S the following states are the ones who have most poverty: Louisiana, Missisipi, Arkansas, New Mexico, North Carolina, West Virginia, New York, Alabama, and Tennessee. From these states, Louisiana is the one who most poverty has. Children Poverty is very dangerous. It can lead to social problems, mental problems, and health problems. This is more likely to be caused when the children is more young.

Now, that I have already researched about other foundations and organizations and other important things, I still want to research about poverty in here. Cartagena is a very poor city, and most of it's population is composed of poor children. I want to learn more about it and put lots of effort in it.

Saturday, February 10, 2007

Poverty in Kids

I am concerned about many things, but I am mostly concerned about Poverty. Poverty is something really sad, especially in kids. This is something that each day grows more and more and we all know that what will mostly solve it is education. While I was searching for information about my topic I learned many new things. What primarly affects the amount of poor people in a place is its country. Poor countries obviously have much more poverty than others. This is so, because poor countries often owe huge amounts of money to richer countries. For example, Africa, has most of the poorest countries in the world, so many poor people live there. On the other hand, there's Canada which has a very small percentage of poor people. Really, I have never been to Canada, but from what I have read, it isn't a poor country.

I also took a look at some other websites. Another one was: Kids Care which also talks about poverty in kids. CARE is an organization to help poor kids and their families all over the world. They are trying to end poverty by suppliying different things to poor people and countries. CARE, helps to build things such as hospitals, schools, water wells, and houses. It also tries to improve the education on poor people. CARE is being help by people who donate money in order to help others. CARE also provides food for some families and help improve their community, this organization has been helping for 50 years. For this organization poverty means the following:

Poverty means not having enough food, shelter, clothing or medical care to live a healthy life. Poverty hurts kids. Almost 1 billion people in the world live in poverty, and more than 500 million of these are children. We know that the best way to escape a life of poverty is through education. But in the developing world, more than 125 million children never attend school. Another 150 million children who begin school must stop before they learn to read or
write because they must work to help to feed their families.

Children should spend their youth by playing, laughing and joking; living happy. This is imposible for poor children. They spend their days workinf and asking for money in the streets in order to survive. Sine children can't even work because they die very young because they don't have food or medical resources. All of this happens because of lack of help and money. What really amazes me about poor children is their attitude. Although, inside, they are ying and are very hungry they always have a happy attitude. On the other side, most of the rich children only complain and complain because they are never happy with what thery have. They always want more. I think it isn't fair that while some kids don't cry because they don't have shoes, other cry because they have Adidas and wantes Nike.

You may think that an option is public schools, but really it isn't. Some parents force their children, specially girls, to stay at home taking care for their younger brothers or sisters. Other parents, force their children to ask for money in the middle of a street and at the end, the parent take the money from the child who has stand in a street all day. Really, poverty is something the world needs to be aware of. Help others as you want others to help you. I have seen many people who as others ask for help they ignore them. I hope someday we can make a change in the world were poverty ends, but I now this is just a dream.

I think that now, my next step is discuss with my partner about what we both found. I will also want to research about the poorest country in the world and how do poor people survive there. Also, research on other organizations that help poor people. Another thing I will like to investigate abour is poverty in Cartagena; that is what I am mainly interested in.