We live in a society where precarious seasonal and contract work without benefit plans is the norm, and genuine poverty is something that can happen to anyone. Poverty is the daily agony of not having enough money for groceries, or having to decide between buying food for your children and paying the rent. Real poverty is isolating. There was a point in my shame about our poverty that even made me wonder if my children would be better off in a different family — thoughts that still haunt me.
Part of the problem is that instead of comparing ourselves to the Joneses like we used to, we now compare ourselves to those picture-perfect celebs and families we see on Instagram. There were days when I thought poverty would break us.
But it did fundamentally change us. I hope it taught us to examine privilege and not to normalize excess. As I write today, our life is more stable financially. I also teach a couple of children in my neighbourhood after school and provide childcare when medical appointments allow.
We take advantage of free museum passes from the library. Sometimes I splurge and make homemade hot cocoa. When I reflect on our life now, I can see we are often broke, but not poor. And despite the fact that needing a new medication still forces me to cut corners, every week we give to the food bank — the nourishing foods that we needed at our lowest point and always hoped would be there. There are a variety of organizations focused on different aspects of poverty.
These can include access to health care and education services, labour rights and conditions, or by demographic such as women and children. Supporting these organizations can involve everything from making financial donations, to volunteering, to advocacy work. With World Vision, there are several ways that you can get involved in the fight against poverty.
You can donate through our Gift Catalogue , become a child ambassador , support a community and more. Poverty affects people in both urban and rural areas, such as in the Democratic Republic of Congo.
Photo: World Vision 9. Photo: Jon Warren Of course, there is no magic wand to eliminate poverty. But with courageous effort, love and cooperation we can all make a difference. Child sponsorship has been how World Vision donors make that difference by helping to strengthen communities.
The results have been significant. Through Area Development Programs, which last between years, child sponsorship has enabled communities to make important progress. Like what you see? Children in 44 countries around the world can use your help today and you can provide it when you sponsor a child. We also work directly with children in conflict zones. These are places where children have been child soldiers, forced into early marriage or physically and sexually abused.
For example: In war-torn Afghanistan, World Vision has set up a network of community change groups that have helped children like Esin avoid being married off as young as Read her story and others like it. In South Sudan, now five years into civil war, World Vision helped Agnes—a former child soldier forced to kill to survive. They act like they should be able to do what they like in life and still have their needs taken care of by someone else.
She has been to every fast food place in town to determine which one of them has the best tasting version of her soda of choice. She eats out at fast food restaurants multiple times a week. She has poverty mentality. There is no way out of poverty when this way of thinking persists. Someone with poverty thinking keeps sabotaging their own possibilities for improvement and success. The difference between someone who is impoverished and someone who is poor is that the poor person acts poor.
The impoverished person buys what they cannot afford, and does what hurts their financial ability to improve themselves. It is the recognition that they are actually poor that helps them behave in a responsible manner. Someone who is poor appreciates their state or condition. I mean by that that they respect their lack of money and what it means in their life like someone respects the properties of fire and what it can and cannot do in their life. When you tell a child not to touch a hot stove because it will burn, an impoverished thinker will feel justified that they should have the right to touch that stove if they want to.
It is their right. They deserve to touch that stove if they choose to. As a result they get burned, a lot. A comparison would be like deciding whether to buy a 24 pack of soda at the grocery store. The poor person realizes that soda is a luxury, not a necessity.
Soda is off limits. To buy the soda is to keep in the same financially strapped condition you are currently in. A poor person knows that any extra money that comes in can be used for savings or can pay an extra bill and will help them get out of debt or can go toward training or education to help them become more financially able to fend for themselves.
They do this by not buying what they cannot afford, and by not feeling like someone owes them something. They understand that depending on someone else to live is addictive and damaging to their own self image.
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