Blog Action Day: A Personal Perspective

I have two very different types of experiences with poverty.

On the one hand, having grown up mainly in West Africa, I have seen people who truly are hungry on a daily basis. When you these things, you can turn your head away, or you can choose to act. My parents chose to act and so did I.

But somehow, the situation in Africa wasn’t as hard as the one here in North America. While people were hungry and life was difficult, Africans have a wonderful sense of community; the love that binds them together is very strong. And this has a profound impact on the way hunger is dealt with. For example, instead of some people dying of hunger, they choose to share their food so that everyone is a little or very hungry.

You don’t see things like that happening here. We choose to go to expensive restaurants and buy ourselves designer apparel, and choose to turn our heads away when we see someone begging on the street. We make more than enough money, then grumble when we have to pay taxes or rationalize our way out of giving to charities.

I’d say that the real problem isn’t poverty in itself, but rather that we choose to let it continue when we have the means of making it disappear for good. Future historians will probably scratch their heads and wonder why, in the era of the Internet, more wasn’t done to eradicate poverty.

One way to do this is to look away from the negative images typically portraying poverty – not to make it something to be ashamed of. Because poor people don’t have anything to be ashamed of other than belonging to an uncaring society. The stereotype of the poor individual living off financial aid while doing nothing more than watch TV all day is the exception, not the rule.

Blog Action Day: More interesting posts

I am not getting much else done today, but I have to say that my understanding of poverty and my vision of what can be done has been increasing. Here is another roundup of the most interesting blog posts I have read related to Blog Action Day 2008.

Out of poverty with dignity: Sounds like another great plan to me!

Donate your piracy savings to reduce poverty: An absolutely brilliant idea! You know you download. Don’t deny it.

How to make yourself happier during the economic crisis: The title might seem to go against the entire idea of Blog Action Day, but do read it; you might be pleasantly surprised.

Eradicating poverty through human ingenuity: A great post about what poverty is, how it is affecting individuals around the world as well as how we can help eradicate it.

Madagascar: No, not the animated movie, but the actual country. A personal account of poverty in Madagascar.

More to come… Posts are popping up by the minute!

Blog Action Day: A little does go a long way

Poverty exists everywhere in the world, but its face changes from continent to continent, from country to country, from region to region. The very definition of poverty also changes; some people consider themselves poor because they can’t go overseas during the holidays, while others consider themselves poor because they can’t afford to eat more than once a day.

But I’m not here to paint a depressing picture that will make you want to cry out in despair. There is more than enough of that going around, and while it helps raise awareness, it doesn’t do much more than that. To be bolstered to act, one needs to know that what one does actually amounts to real change. And that’s why I’d rather talk about what can be done at the grassroots to help eradicate poverty.

While giving people money and food does help to get them fed and clothed, and donations to such organizations as Sun Youth, Renaissance and The Old Brewery Mission do help, this doesn’t solve any of the causes of poverty. There are many such causes unfortunately, including corporate & personal greed which created and maintain an unjust distribution of the world’s wealth. A more personal cause of poverty is a person’s lack of capability to get out of his or her situation of poverty. In layman’s terms, it means that a person lacks the skills and knowledge to get out of his or her situation. This however doesn’t have anything to do with the person’s capacity to acquire such capabilities.

There is unfortunately no one magical solution to solve the problem of poverty. However, there are certain principles that should guide us which can make our efforts more efficient.

First and foremost is the concept of human dignity. Poverty doesn’t mean a lack of humanity; poor people deserve the same respect as rich people, if not more, since they have survived terrible conditions. Neither does poverty mean a lack of capacity; it just means that these capacities haven’t been brought out and honed.

The concept of human dignity is directly linked to the second concept. Ever heard of the expression: “Give a man a fish, feed him for a day, teach him how to fish, feed him for life”? The concept of human dignity implies that the person we want to help is able to help himself once certain conditions have been met.

Two of the three activities I’d like to suggest to you are directly linked to this lack of capabilities. The first one is to sponsor a child so that he or she can get an education. You can go through an organisation or find a school that accepts direct donations. One such school would be Banani International Secondary School in Zambia.

But money isn’t the only thing that is lacking; there is a scarcity in human resources on a continent that has been ravaged by the HIV/AIDS pandemic. Many teachers have died since the beginning of the epidemic, and, combined with the brain drain, this has created a big shortage in teachers and educators. If you can go there for a short time (3 months) or, even better, give an entire year to serving the children in Africa in a school somewhere, you would be helping the next generation acquire precious skills.

Unfortunately, one might long to go but not be able to; good thing there are other ways to help! The third suggestion I have is to contribute to microcredit schemes. To learn more about microcredit, you can watch a great, inspiring and uplifting documentary by PBS on the subject, which you can find here.

In short, microcredit means that you are going to be lending someone a sum of money that is ridiculously small by North American standards; within a set amount of time, the person you have lent this money to will develop her business and eventually pay you back. I’m purposefully using the feminine because most of the successful recipients of microcredit loans have been women (around 80%). And if you’re wondering how many people actually return the loans, well, let’s just say that the return rates are the highest in the world; they are well above 90% (you can read more about microcredit here and here).

How does one go about lending money to an African entrepreneur? One way of doing so is through organizations such as Kiva, which is one of the few person-to-person lending sites currently in existence. It makes the experience all the more interesting in that you know exactly where the money goes, who receives it, what happens to it and you get feedback on that person’s success.

There is probably a lot more you can do; if none of the suggestions above appeal to you, then good for you! This means that you now have the exciting challenge of finding something else to do that will make your tickle your noodle.

Yes, I did just write tickle your noodle. Maybe my capacities need some further honing, too.

Blog Action Day: Some interesting posts

So I have just spent the last hour reading up on what other bloggers have to say about poverty, and I have to say, I’m really impressed. It’s heartwarming and encouraging to know that there are so many people who care out there.

Here are (for now) some of my favorites. I plan to waste – euh, I mean, spend – more time on the Blog Action Day official website, so do check back for another list of favorite posts later during the day.

Using Social Media to Fight Poverty: Going beyond Blog Action Day

The Promise of Africa: Me, have a biais for Africa? Naaaaaah! This is a great post just because it’s great, and not because it’s related to Africa, I promise!

Blog Vs Poverty: Lovely acerbic humor pondering amongst other things on why a celebrity studded concert didn’t solve the poverty issue. Isn’t celebrity the answer to EVERYTHING?

A tale of two crises : a great post about worldwide poverty and the current credit crunch. “Above all, the message of trade unionism is that if we get together – if we act collectively – we can change things for the better. We can solve the credit crunch and we can solve global poverty.“

Poverty Reading Roundup: So in case you haven’t had enough of reading blogs, here are some books you can pick up to read more on poverty. I read Nickled and Dimed by the way, and it’s an amazing book.

Blog Action Day: an Introduction

Things aren’t going well. Surprise, surprise.

So how can we change them?

As Al Gore explained quite eloquently in his book The Assault on Reason now more than ever we need to be well informed and be part of the political process if we want things to change. One great way is through the Internet, where a constant transparent exchange of ideas is taking place without any filter than the one the author chooses to use. And, by increasing the number of voices talking, we are able to get rid of the filters.

Blog Action Day is one way of lifting the veils off various topics, this year’s being poverty.

Bloggers Unite: On October 15th bloggers everywhere will publish posts that discuss poverty in some way. By all posting on the same day we aim to change the conversation that day, to raise awareness, start a global discussion and add momentum to an important cause.

Why? Every blogger has a unique voice, audience and perspective. By speaking to their readers on topic about an important issue we can discuss global issues like poverty in a new and hugely multi-faceted way. And from discussion springs action.

What can I write about? The best thing a blog can do is to keep their post on topic. Audiences visit our blogs because they enjoy the style, personality and topic of the site. So it makes sense that the best way to get through to these audiences is to use that same style, personality and topic to talk about Poverty. For example:

• A Design Blog might analyse a set of charity posters and how they convey their message.
• A Tech Blog might look at pro-poor technologies and projects.
• A Political Blog might examine the relevant agendas of leading candidates.
• A Sports Blog might look at recent charity activities of a major sports franchise.

So take a minute to check out http://blogactionday.org/. Take another couple of minutes to post something on your blog or to post a note on your Facebook profile (and you know you have no excuse not to do THAT!). And keep checking my blog: there is more coming up as part of Blog Action Day!