What is poverty?
It’s a question that seems simple, but really is much more complex than most people realize. It’s especially difficult for people to grasp if they have never been in poverty.
When people in Western culture think of poverty, we have a tendency to think of it in terms of finances and possessions. If a family does not have a certain amount of money, food or clothing, that is when we define them as “poor.”
Although there is a certain degree of truth to that, the poverty that people across Latin America, Africa and Asia are facing is much deeper.
The poverty threshold for a single American adult is $10,830 per year, according to the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services. That is 23 times more than the World Bank’s poverty line of $1.25 a day. There are about one billion people earning that much or less.
Roughly another billion are living on just barely more that that, but still less than $2 per day.
Most families facing these circumstances live in communities where they are surrounded by other families facing the same poverty. Everyone they know was always poor.
They live in countries where the government is unable or unwilling to help them. Often, they have no opportunity for schooling. There are no hospitals or doctors nearby when illness or disease strikes.
All of these things, day in and day out, create the worst form of poverty.
A lack of hope.
A lack of options. When children decide that all of these barriers will keep them from being relevant, poverty is born inside of them.
Haiti is one example.
The Port-Au-Prince earthquake of January has been replaced in the media with health care reform and the return of golfer Tiger Woods. While Americans have focused on those other subjects, Haitians have been enduring the rainy season in their newly formed tent communities.
Before the earthquake struck, Haiti already was going through a disaster. It’s just that poverty is a disaster that takes so long to claim its victims that it doesn’t usually grab our attention.
The Haitian literacy rate is just under 55 percent. Fewer than 60 percent of the population has access to clean water. The Haitian mortality rate for children under age 5 is 10 times higher than in the United States.
When a country has 54 percent of its population living on one dollar a day or less, there is little people can hope for when tragedy strikes.
Fortunately, there was a great international response to the plight of the Haitians in the wake of the earthquake. But while Port-au-Prince was highlighted, hunger was still killing one child every three seconds worldwide.
Bangladesh. India. Kenya. Bolivia. Each of these countries and many more have extreme poverty but few headlines.
But there is one piece of good news here. Nearly everyone reading this story can do something to fight poverty.
The teenager in Hummelstown who wants to show that she can make a difference in this world, the elderly man in Camp Hill who wants to prove that his life still matters, the office worker in Harrisburg who is not making the impact in the world he would like.
It does not require Bono or George Clooney’s credentials to impact lives across the globe. There are many people and organizations who are making a difference. Here is just one example:
Compassion International is a Christian child-sponsorship organization that works in 27 countries. Compassion partners with a local church already in the community where impoverished children live and analyzes what the children in that community need. Then they provide for those needs through that local congregation, be it food, clean water, education or immunizations.
Besides meeting those physical needs, Compassion also facilitates a letter-writing relationship between the child and sponsor. That sponsor can tell their child overseas that he or she is not just being cared for, they also are being cared about. The sponsor can share hope with the child.
Those who wish to help should do their homework first, looking at places such as CharityNavigator.com or the Better Business Bureau to find reputable organizations. But there are many places where one person can make a difference.
None of us will change the world. But any of us can change one life. No children born in poverty need to have poverty born in them.
David Bohr is a Patriot-News sportswriter and volunteer with Compassion International. He has traveled to Brazil and the Dominican Republic with Compassion.