Where is the boundary of poverty?!
According to the latest data in Croatia, the risk of poverty is about 20 percent. 4 million inhabitants live here, which would mean that about 800,000 people are on the verge of poverty or already living in misery. Every fifth resident does not have all the necessary for a decent life.
Compared to other European countries, Croatia is very high on the list of the poverty risk, and Bulgaria, Romania, Greece and some of the Baltic countries are also at the top.
It would be even harder if we mentioned some other parts of the world.
What does it mean to be poor?
In Croatia, we often use a saying - 'The well-fed one does not believe the hungry one'.
That's the whole point.
Families that live in poverty are deprived of basic substantive rights, they can not pay for housing, so they end up living in cold and humid apartments. They do not know if they will end up on the street, and the biggest problem is the long-term exposure of children to poverty.
Adults may sometimes be responsible for the situation they are in, but children are not and should not be.
There is nothing that bothers me more, and an image I can not forget is when I see a hungry child in Africa. We throw away huge amounts of food, we spend money on nonsense, we don't eager for anything anymore... so, how can we watch such scenes? I do not know, it affects me a lot.
When I was in school we had a few students who couldn't afford to pay a trip, so we all collected money for them. Today, it seems to me that every second child has the same problem but want's to hide that from the rest of the class.
Long-term exposure to poverty can sometimes leave lasting consequences to a child.
What can we do?
I'm not sure I have the answer to this question. I would like to hand this off to the politicians but they are not doing anything. Fighting against poverty should be a political decision. The world is full of goods, but for example, in our country, that can feed twenty million people, many are on the verge of hunger. Something's wrong!
Maybe the right question is, what can WE do?
We can look around. Try to help as much as we can. We can try not to support social exclusion of that people.
Lately, on a conference, I have met people that live in poverty and they shared their life story with me. I will never forget when a young man said - The family house was burned down, so I went with my parents to the shelter. People around me discarded me, I experienced disenchantment, insults, friends, and people I met did not understand that this could happen to them either. Yes, it can happen to everyone, how often have you read about some famous actor or singer that now lives on the edge of poverty.
Today that man I've met lives day by day, hoping that someday he would have the main human right - right to work. So, what we can do is not to judge those people but try to help them as much as we can.
Poverty is closely connected to unemployment so it is crucial to solve the problem from the very beginning.
In our country, some steps are taken, but they are very small. The new law is being prepared, in which beside the experts, people who have experienced or are still living in poverty should also be included. They could use their suggestions to help those who do not have similar problems to understand what they are most upset about and how the state can help them.
Disclaimer: I don't want anybody to read my comment with their emotions but with common sense, I was once very poor living without electricity and water
The main problem is if we all had our basic needs covered, there would be 50 billion people in the time frame of 30 years and 50 billion people on this planet is a path to extinction of human race. Poverty can be solved by 5 people from the top of the financial chain, but realistically it's not good long-term.
I know what you are trying to say, but what does that mean...that we should leave this child in Africa to starve to death, is that child's life less important than the one who lives in wealth? Are we really going to except an elimination system?
Though extinction of a human race is another topic to discuss :))
Yea it's a very hard subject because emotionally I feel the same way and I'm all for building them schools, free health centers and what not but when we look the big picture of our planet... we're enough of parasites as we are. Factories, cars, garbage... Now imagine 2,3,...,10x more of us humans :)
Considering the way we treat each other and the way we treat our planet, maybe it wouldn't be such a bad idea to speed up the final countdown :)
Who knows what future brings :D
In the age of the information, poverty should be solved in a second... Unfortunately, we care about our own ass :(
Poverty is probably the thing I hate the most... Thanks for sharing love!
You are absolutely right, it can be solved in a second but it's only getting worst... terrible world that we live in :(
yap :( we are building bridges, churches, roads, etc while people are out there in the cold... Logic, go fu*k yourself :(
Maybe I'm too crazy, but my view on this is that we must first care about the people that need basics for life, and then we can build some buildings or I don't know what..
True 👍
We have seen a lot of egalitarian theories trying to construct just practice in human society. They filed. Why?
Because we tend to forget the basic traits of human nature. Selfishness is one of them. It takes 25 or more years of socialization to "train" good member of society, many times this effort fail, too.
It seems that this is unsolvable problem of social dynamics, which can be meliorated on in some types of society. And, we are still looking for best of all possible worlds.