Poverty. According to the Webster's Dictionary, it means "the state of having little or no money and few or no material possessions." When you don't have any or just a little amount of money, you can't buy food to eat. Without anything to eat, you continue to starve, and unless you can find more food within a few weeks, you'll die of hunger. But poverty is more than that. It's people dying because they don't have water (or water that's not clean enough) or a good shelter. It's people not having clean food to eat and develop sicknesses like diarrhea (and they couldn't afford the medicine for those sicknesses).
It just saddens me knowing that at least 70,000 people die of poverty each day. A lot of them are from countries in Africa. Some also come from certain countries in Asia, such as India and China. But anyone can die from poverty almost anywhere.
There are a lot of causes for poverty, but here are some of the most common:
* No fertility in soil which eventually lead to hunger because farming wasn't possible.
* Low wages or no wages.
* Not able to access or afford health care.
* Weak government, which can lead the country to poverty.
* Wars
Just because so many people die of poverty, uncontrollably, does not mean that you can't do something about it. People are working hard to find the help, and I'm happy to say that the percentage of extreme poverty has decreased throughout the years. Here are a few reasons why:
* More jobs for residents
* More schools, and ending school fees
* Cure for diseases such as malaria, and tuberculosis
* More trees are planted
* Improving slums
* Providing public housing
Now, you're probably thinking, "I want to help people who are suffering, but how am I suppose to do any of that?" The answer is, you don't have to. All you have to do is go to www.poverty.com. There's a list of people dying from poverty everyday, and the list is updated every second!
If you're ever bored when using the Internet, go to www.freerice.com. There, you can play the vocabulary game. For every word you get right, 20 grain of rice will be donated to the United Nations World Food Program to help end world hunger. You can learn new words and help feed the hungry at the same time!
I believe that poverty will end, but only if we all pitch in and do our parts. It will end at some point, but if we all help, it can stop sooner.
This is Linds113, off to help the hungry!
