Fighting Poverty Without Political Coloration
October 17 2017 By Abiodun Giwa
Whoever has experienced being a victim of poverty would wish his or her own enemies to fall a victim to that state of lacking and not knowing where the next meal will come.
It is about real hunger, uncertain of the next meal, changing the clothes on your back, no money to back up any future plan and watching your age mates going to school, while you are left behind.
Imagine yourself as belonging to a family struggling for survival. Your parents can barely manage to ensure the eldest child's high school education, and the eldest child in turn struggles to ensure his immediate brother's high school education.
You vend pap in your neighborhood in the morning before going to attend classes in your elementary school days, and groundnuts in the afternoon after school hours, to help your family survive hard financial situation.
When it comes to your turn to attend high school, your parents are unable to pay your way through school, and your eldest brother saddled with his immediate brother's school fees payment and managing his own life. You are left stranded. You watch your dad and mum struggle to provide meals for you to stay alive but have no means to do anything beyond ensuring your stomach is filled. You understand your parent's and family's predicament. You are powerless to do anything about it. You try to get money from other relatives to pay your through school to no avail. You resign to fate, but vow to still have your life's education anytime the opportunity comes up, after you have been flogged almost to death by a school senior tutor for writing a promotion examination as a debtor student.
Meanwhile, you see your age mates passing through school, while you decide to go to the city to seek livelihood and possibly a way to continue schooling as a private candidate. You realize you have left behind many other children in the same shoes that you are in, who are unable to take their life by the bootstrap and find a way to get what poverty has denied them, a lot far different from the lots of children from well to do homes.
It is not that there is not a government program for you scholarship for a child like you to benefit from, but your application is rejected when you make one and you realize that it is still the children of the rich and the well connected who enjoy such facility. You have waded through all obstacles to achieve your life's education and you see that nothing has changed and that the political class has made those deprived by poverty ladder for their own political aspiration and that as soon as they enter office they forget about helping the poor, but continue to use poverty as a reason for seeking office, and seem to do nothing concrete to help the poor, and only care about how to manipulate the poor and the burden of poverty terrorizing the poor to remain in office.
In the United States, the Republican Party is identified as the part for the rich, while the Democratic party is identified as party for the poor. In other climes, the Democrats recognize or call themselves the progressives and the other party as belonging to the shakers and movers of the society.
It is very difficult to understand why one party identifies itself as belonging to the poor or the only party that cares about the poor and the other party as elitist and only for the rich, when in fact both parties are populated by the rich and both use the poor as ladder for their aspirations. You begin to think it is time stop this political coloration or politicization of poverty by politicians, who have money and the media as instruments in their hands.
All agree that poverty is everywhere, including the so called rich countries of the world the United States, Canada, United Kingdom Germany, Austria etc. Politicians talk about it everyday, but seem to do little, like their counterparts in poor countries, to ameliorate the condition of people in poverty situation.
Though, there are programs targeted against poverty situation in advanced countries, unlike the situation in poor countries, that is making people to flee across the sea in search of solution. People coming across the sea have been accused of abusing the benefit availability in rich countries, when in truth there are also people within the rich countries, who are well off but abuse the benefit availability due to lack of good management.
It is about real hunger, uncertain of the next meal, changing the clothes on your back, no money to back up any future plan and watching your age mates going to school, while you are left behind.
Imagine yourself as belonging to a family struggling for survival. Your parents can barely manage to ensure the eldest child's high school education, and the eldest child in turn struggles to ensure his immediate brother's high school education.
You vend pap in your neighborhood in the morning before going to attend classes in your elementary school days, and groundnuts in the afternoon after school hours, to help your family survive hard financial situation.
When it comes to your turn to attend high school, your parents are unable to pay your way through school, and your eldest brother saddled with his immediate brother's school fees payment and managing his own life. You are left stranded. You watch your dad and mum struggle to provide meals for you to stay alive but have no means to do anything beyond ensuring your stomach is filled. You understand your parent's and family's predicament. You are powerless to do anything about it. You try to get money from other relatives to pay your through school to no avail. You resign to fate, but vow to still have your life's education anytime the opportunity comes up, after you have been flogged almost to death by a school senior tutor for writing a promotion examination as a debtor student.
Meanwhile, you see your age mates passing through school, while you decide to go to the city to seek livelihood and possibly a way to continue schooling as a private candidate. You realize you have left behind many other children in the same shoes that you are in, who are unable to take their life by the bootstrap and find a way to get what poverty has denied them, a lot far different from the lots of children from well to do homes.
It is not that there is not a government program for you scholarship for a child like you to benefit from, but your application is rejected when you make one and you realize that it is still the children of the rich and the well connected who enjoy such facility. You have waded through all obstacles to achieve your life's education and you see that nothing has changed and that the political class has made those deprived by poverty ladder for their own political aspiration and that as soon as they enter office they forget about helping the poor, but continue to use poverty as a reason for seeking office, and seem to do nothing concrete to help the poor, and only care about how to manipulate the poor and the burden of poverty terrorizing the poor to remain in office.
In the United States, the Republican Party is identified as the part for the rich, while the Democratic party is identified as party for the poor. In other climes, the Democrats recognize or call themselves the progressives and the other party as belonging to the shakers and movers of the society.
It is very difficult to understand why one party identifies itself as belonging to the poor or the only party that cares about the poor and the other party as elitist and only for the rich, when in fact both parties are populated by the rich and both use the poor as ladder for their aspirations. You begin to think it is time stop this political coloration or politicization of poverty by politicians, who have money and the media as instruments in their hands.
All agree that poverty is everywhere, including the so called rich countries of the world the United States, Canada, United Kingdom Germany, Austria etc. Politicians talk about it everyday, but seem to do little, like their counterparts in poor countries, to ameliorate the condition of people in poverty situation.
Though, there are programs targeted against poverty situation in advanced countries, unlike the situation in poor countries, that is making people to flee across the sea in search of solution. People coming across the sea have been accused of abusing the benefit availability in rich countries, when in truth there are also people within the rich countries, who are well off but abuse the benefit availability due to lack of good management.
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