UNESCO estimates that million people could be lifted out of extreme poverty if they left school with basic reading skills. Poverty threatens education, but education can also help end poverty. What if you have to go to work, but there are no roads to get you there?
Or what if heavy rains have flooded your route and made it impossible to travel? But usually we can rely on our local governments to step in. A lack of infrastructure — from roads, bridges, and wells, to cables for light, cell phones, and internet — can isolate communities living in rural areas.
Living off the grid often means living without the ability to go to school, work, or the market to buy and sell goods. Traveling further distances to access basic services not only takes time, it costs money, keeping families in poverty. Without opportunity, many find it difficult, if not impossible, to escape extreme poverty.
But a large-scale epidemic or pandemic merits its own spot on this list. More localized epidemics like Ebola in West Africa and, later, in the DRC , cholera in Haiti or the DRC, or malaria in Sierra Leone have demonstrated how local and national governments can grind to a halt while working to stop the spread of a disease, provide resources to frontline workers and centers, and come up with contingency plans as day-to-day life is disrupted.
All of this comes, naturally, at a cost. This included losses in the private sector, agricultural production, and international trade. Poverty can mean a lot of different things in a lot of different contexts. But there are still some indisputable facts — and some equally persistent myths.
We also pay into insurances against unemployment and fund social security through our paychecks. Theses systems ensure that we have a safety net to fall back on if we lose our job or retire. But not every government can provide this type of help to its citizens.
Especially in the face of the unexpected. If a family or community has reserves in place, they can weather some risk. Proper food storage systems can help stretch a previous harvest if a drought or natural disaster ruins the next one.
At its core, poverty is a lack of basic assets or a lack on return from what assets a person has. This leads to negative coping mechanisms, including pulling children out of school to work or even marry , and selling off assets to buy food. That can help a family make it through one bad season, but not another.
For communities constantly facing climate extremes or prolonged conflict, the repeated shocks can send a family reeling into extreme poverty and prevent them from ever recovering. At the top of the list: Zero poverty.
No small feat, but also not impossible. At Concern, we believe that zero poverty is possible, especially when we work with communities to address both inequalities and risks. Last year, we reached Pictured in the banner image for this story is one of those people, Adrenise Lusa.
With monthly cash transfers as part of Graduation and a loan from her community Village Savings and Loans Association, she invested in a few income-generating activities including goat rearing and trading oil, maize, and cassava.
Prior to joining Graduation, she had the ideas. Since launching her new ventures, Adrenise has increased her income from approximately 30, francs per month to anywhere between —, francs per month, depending on the season. Learn more about the other ways you can help the fight against poverty.
Support Concern. Helping people lift themselves out of poverty is almost never a dramatic process. It takes time and commitment, and often As the war in Syria drags into its 9th year, the conflict has taken on a different shape. While the A program in Malawi encourages couples to create a shared vision of their ideal future, setting up common goalposts and Conflict, climate disaster, chronic poverty.
The need now is more urgent than ever. Give now to help transform lives. Concern Worldwide US. First Name The top 11 causes of poverty around the world November 3, Photo by Hugh Kinsella Cunningham.
Share Tweet Email. Photo journal: The faces of maternal and child health in South Sudan To break the cycle of hunger, we have to begin by ensuring that expecting and new mothers and their young children have the health and nutrition support they need. Read More. How climate change fuels the cycle of poverty By , climate change could force more than million people into extreme poverty. Poverty myths and facts: Setting fake news straight Poverty can mean a lot of different things in a lot of different contexts.
How we're fighting poverty around the world. Syrian women look to the future Syrian women look to the future As the war in Syria drags into its 9th year, the conflict has taken on a different shape. Pico Blvd. Donate Now facebook twitter instagram. For instance, white students were almost 10 times more likely than black students to attend an elementary or middle school with reading test scores in the top 20 percent citywide, and eight times more likely to attend a school with high math scores.
A separate study of math education in 33 countries found that students in all economic levels did better when they had a challenging, rich curriculum. One of the authors of that study said U. Schmidt, a professor at Michigan State University. The idea of making top quality education more broadly available usually raises the question of how to pay for it. There never seems to be enough money.
Washington courts are even now leaning on the Legislature to fully fund education. Legislators say they are hard-pressed to find those dollars. And that is a matter of our will as residents to pay what it would cost. Arne Duncan, the outgoing U. A few decades ago, the Soviet Union sent a tiny craft called Sputnik into space and scared the stuffing out of U.
We made changes because we believed they were critical to our national survival. Sputnik launched in and was followed by the National Defense Education Act of , which provided federal money for improving American schools and encouraging more students to go on to college.
Inequality ought to frighten us today, as we look to a future in which we will depend on children in school now to preserve our quality of life and standing in the world.
0コメント