This is off blog topic, but for a good reason, I’m part of Blog Action day and this year’s topic is poverty. How appropriate in this period of stock chaos and economic crisis.
I was originally going to write this post about crafting and how you can save money as well as help poverty causes. I’ll still add a few of those links at the bottom, however, we have been talking a lot lately in our family about whether we’re rich or poor. My daughter is totally confused by the distinction and asks a lot whether we are rich or poor. My son, the consumer, wants to buy everything he sees on TV. My stock standard response to “can I have…” is “we can’t afford it”. My daughter takes that to mean that we are poor.
One of the interesting things in the United States today is how spoiled we all are. I think the recent “fall” of the economy is telling. Many people live WAY beyond their means to have the “comforts” of life. However, world poverty is something else again. Here it means you may live in a small house, you may not have a lot handed to you. Worst case you’re homeless – most American homeless have shelter available to them – not great shelter, but it’s there. Unlike third world countries where poverty truly means starvation. It means not having access to ANY food, not just access to food from the food bank. 70% of Americans own a home – but perhaps can’t afford it. They live with the fear of living on the street, but most have somewhere to go. It also means disease and lack of any health care.
What would it be like to be in a country where there was no shelter. Where there was ongoing war and poverty and the true inability to even feed your family…much less provide them the comforts of life. Well, if you’re like me, you can’t really relate to that. I’ve never really been hungry and neither have my kids. Their idea of impoverished is not having the latest toys.
So, I guess my post today is about thinking WAY outside our box. I think today I’ll quit thinking about my possible loss (on paper) of stock and rejoice that I always have a full cupboard of food. Maybe the way to really cure our economic woes is to quit thinking about what we don’t have and start thinking of how to share it.
So, the links I promised:
Women for Women.org: http://womenforwomen.org/
Donors Choose.org: http://www.donorschoose.org/homepage/main.html?zone=0
The end of poverty: http://www.earth.columbia.edu/pages/endofpoverty/index
I might add more as the day progresses….
