Poverty in the New Economy
October 15, 2008 |
Today is Blog Action Day, a day where thousands of blogs turn the focus to poverty. Poverty is a disease that, according to Bono, is completely curable. Organizations like Bono’s One Campaign have been trying to elevate or eliminate poverty for years now. Global poverty, people living on less than a dollar or so a day, is a massive problem that does need to be dealt with but for the purpose of this entry, I’m looking at a different form of poverty, a new form of poverty, a form of poverty that has only shown up over the course of the last year.
The world economy has crumbled over the last year as a result of many factors, some driven by you and me and some driven by the government, but the fact of the mater is the economy is in trouble. As a result hundreds of thousands of people have lost their jobs and/or foreclosed on their homes here in the US alone. Unfortunately the next few months will see the numbers continue to rise. Poverty is no longer segregated into pockets of neighborhoods or countries around the world, it can involve you, your neighbor, anyone. Poverty is now a bigger crisis then it ever has been before because of how extremely widespread it has begun.
Six months ago a majority of the worlds poverty could have been eliminated if the affluent countries of the world came together and attributed money to the problem. Unfortunately, in light of what’s happened economically, countries have come together to pump money into the world economies in order to prevent the problem from growing. While this might slow, and eventually correct the current situation, it doesn’t really do anything for someone that no longer has a job, has lost their house, or was living in poverty prior to the market meltdown. In fact, once we get out of the mess we’re now in, we’ll actually be right back where we were six months ago with regards to combating poverty.
What this means is we’re not going to be able to rely on the governments of the world to help solve this problem. We, as a global people, are going to have to take action into our own hands. We can each, individually, make a difference. Be it volunteering at local homeless shelters, working for organizations like Habitat for Humanity, or even sponsoring impoverished children through missions like Compassion International, you and I can effect change.
My hope is that as this economic situation has now touched virtually everyone in some form, poverty has now been made real to every citizen on the planet. As a result I hope that we collectively do what we can to eradicate the issue. One day we will be able to remove poverty from list of global issues, it will just require a bit of time and effort. Let’s make it happen.
What is something you can do to help eliminate poverty? Discuss it in the comments below.