I haven’t received a response from my contacts yet, so I
went and visited the Childhood Poverty Research and Poverty Centre (CHIP) website.
In the article I discovered several things about what poverty involves. The three
most relevant topics that I read about were: the emotional side of poverty for
a child, causes for childhood poverty, and what can help to diminish poverty.
Emotional- a child who grows up in poverty not only lacks
from basic economic and nutritional resources, but also from emotional and
spiritual developmental needs that feed the soul. Some parents may lack the
time or desire to spend time with their children, these leads to emotional destabilization
for the child. In school, children could be stigmatized by their peers for
wearing old or torn clothing.
Causes of poverty- economic trends and policies, environmental
stresses, epidemics, and/or poor governance. It also has to do with the
expenditures that a poor country has and its liberalization on financial
systems to make the country “competitive” in global markets (developing
countries v.s. developed countries) such as: bringing foreign worldwide
companies competing with national/ local companies, privatization, limited disbursement
on public needs, among others.
Diminishing Poverty- responses from the government and
private sectors should be: investing on positive impact programs and economic
activities, access to primary health care, health services for mothers and
their children, adult education, access to service for children with disabilities,
among others.
There’s also our own contribution to diminish poverty, no
matter how small or big. Being educated, means to give a helping hand and not
being selfish, that's what makes us human.
