About 3 billion people live on less than $2.50 a day. Nearly a billion people in developing countries have little access to water, and 2.6 billion lack basic necessities. It’s a sad fact, but it’s something everyone must admit. The truth is that we have a habit to avoid, even outright ignore the cold hard facts when it comes to such a bleak topic as poverty. We read an article, listen to someone on TV and maybe sometimes we pause and reflect afterward on how hard it must be to live in a cardboard box. We think about it and frown, but in the end we move on.
Part of the problem is that when we look at poverty and those harmed by it, we don’t feel empathic because they are not people we know. Like when the media says that in the U.S. 17 percent of children live in poverty, that is only a statistic. We don’t fell the way we should fell, therefore we don’t do anything about it.
I think the biggest hurdle in our way even when we do choose to act on the feeling of empathy is a question we often don’t have an answer to. Can I really make a difference? If I do try, will I really help? I think the answer is a big fat YES. We need to understand that we can’t do this alone. We have to work together. An ant doesn’t move a cookie to its anthill by itself. What they do is break it up and each ant plays its own part by taking a small piece back to the hill. Little by little the whole cookie gets inside the anthill, and everybody has enough to eat. It’s the same way with poverty and how we can get rid of it. The least we can do is try.
Poverty is a global issue, something we all need to work on to fix. Please think about doing anything you can do to help. Some ideas are donating your old clothes, and contributing what you can to a food bank. Again, it doesn’t have to be a huge contribution to make a difference. If we can all play a part, and work together, we can make a difference.
Oh, and by the way, please don’t read this and forget about it. Act on it. I’m trying to make a conscious effort to find things I can help out with. I don’t know what or how I’ll do it exactly, but I am certain that I will play my part however tiny it may be.
Alex G
Hey... nice work Alex! That was great! You used lots of big words, but they all worked really well together. I like how descriptive you are about your topic.
ReplyDeleteEmily's blog is right Alex G, this is nice work! Your introductory paragraph is very effective and really forces the reader to reflect on their own attitudes about poverty. Similarly, the ant moving a cookie to an anthill analogy really clarifies your point and makes it easy for your reader to remember the main point of your post. Excellent first post.
ReplyDelete