Poverty was and still is one of the biggest and the most serious killers in the world. Many people don’t die because of illness like AIDS and Malaria but because of the fact that they are so poor that they can’t survive.
What is poverty? The despair of a father with a family of seven children in a poor country when he joins the swelling ranks of unemployed with no prospects of unemployment compensation. Poverty is the longing of a young boy playing outside a village school but unable to enter because his parents lack a few ringgits needed to buy text books. Poverty is the grief of parents watching a three year old child die of a routine childhood disease because they cannot afford any medical care. Therefore in short, it is a human condition; it is despair, grief and pain.
What causes poverty? There are many causes and effects of poverty. The most obvious effect of poverty is hunger; however hunger can also be a cause of poverty. This is because hunger deprives those living in absolute poverty of the skill and strength to carry out productive work.
Natural disasters, economic crises, and conflicts also cause poverty as they leave the poor very vulnerable, with nobody to help them and a lack of resources to use to help themselves for example lack of access to basic resources including food, clean water and good sanitation.
As can be seen, poverty can be classified as one of the largest problems facing the world today in the same category as other global problems such as pollution, climate change etc. Which problem takes priority – poverty or climate change? They are both connected but I think now the concentration needs to be on poverty. The reason is that we have bigger possibilities to help people who live in poor countries without food, water, clothes and education. We are not able to find a solution to the problem of climate change because of its nature and we can only delay it but can’t stop it.
What are the effects or results of poverty? People, who die of hunger, lack the money to buy enough food so they become less able to work, which is another condition of poverty. Poverty hits children the hardest. They need to grow up healthy but a lot of them don’t have this possibility. The worst thing is that hunger doesn’t affect only children’s’ health, but also their development in every way- emotional, physical and spiritual. Children are the future of our planet, so we can’t let them die. They should have money for food and education, because later they will be able to do something to help their country and the Earth. Many children want to develop themselves but unfortunately they don’t have this opportunity. And it is not fair because all of us should have equal rights and a level playing field.
Poverty affects many aspects of people life. They have to live in bad houses, wear ugly or tattered clothes and have the worst healthcare. Hence, it may change a human’s character, for instance: they get furious easily with their relatives so the atmosphere is often boiling. Some people even become robbers when they run out of money. They steal money or expensive things that appear in front of their eyes.
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