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Alicia, an urban social worker in the Philippines, stated: “Poverty is a woman sending her children out to beg in traffic rather than to school because otherwise there will be nothing to eat. The mother knows she is repeating a cycle that trapped her, but there is no way out that she can see.”
Some 500 million children have no school to attend. One billion adults are functionally illiterate. Without an education, it is difficult to get a good job. So poverty leads to a lack of education, which leads to more poverty.
A lack of housing exists in poor nations, and even in some wealthy ones. One report says that nearly a quarter of a million of the inhabitants of New York City have stayed in shelters for the homeless at some time during the past five years. Europe too has its poor people. In London about 400,000 are registered as homeless. In France a half million people have no home.
Throughout the developing world, the situation is worse. People stream to towns and cities, lured by dreams of food, jobs, and a better life. In some cities, more than 60 percent of the population lives in shantytowns or slums. Rural poverty thus fuels urban poverty.
Intensifying all these problems is population growth. World population has more than doubled in the past 45 years. The United Nations estimates that the figure will soar to 6.2 billion by the year 2000 and to 9.8 billion by 2050. The poorest areas of the world have the highest population growth rates. Of the roughly 90 million babies born in 1995, 85 million were born in countries least able to provide for them.
Do you believe that humankind will suddenly cooperate to eradicate poverty forever by solving the problems of hunger, sickness, unemployment, destruction of the environment, lack of education, poor housing, and war? Probably you do not.
Does that mean that the situation is hopeless? No, because the solution is in sight and will come with certainty. But not by human efforts. How then? And what about the words of Jesus when he said: “You always have the poor with you”?
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Ann Waller
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