Group essay 1

                   Third World Poverty

Around the world, in rich or poor nations, poverty has always been present. Almost half the world –over 3 billion people– live on less than $2.50 dollars a day. It is shocking to learn that 640 million people in the world live without adequate shelter. 400 million have no access to safe water. 270 million have no access to health services. Poverty is a big issue, affecting a large majority of the world’s people and nations. Why is this? Is it enough to blame poor people for their own predicament? Is it because they’ve been lazy, made bad decisions, and are solely responsible for their place in life? What about their governments? Have they pursued policies that are actually harmful to successful development? Such causes of poverty and inequality are no doubt real.

History is a big cause of the poverty in third world countries. Many of the poorest nations in the world were former colonies, slave-exporting areas and territories from which resources had been systematically extracted for the benefit of colonizing countries. For most of these former colonies, colonialism and its legacies have helped create the conditions that prevent many people from accessing land, capital, education, and other resources that allow people to support themselves adequately. Because of these barriers, poor nations are stuck with poor resources that do not help with the country’s development. 

Nowadays, globalization has become more and more present in our everyday lives. With the increasing interconnectedness promised by globalization, also comeglobal decisions, policies, and practices. These global decisions are usually influenced and driven by the rich and powerful, such as the leaders of rich countries or presidents of multinational corporations. In the face of such external influence, the government of poorer nations and their people are often powerless. As a result, a few get wealthy while the majority struggle. This causes the inequality gap between the rich and the poor to grow larger day after day. The increasing poverty of the third world countries has caused a wave of non-globalization voices and the anti-West hegemonyperspective. 

In poor nations, lack of education is a big issue that causes a vicious cycle of poverty. A large majority of said children do not have access to basic education because of inequalities that originate in sex and financial issues. These children find themselves on the margin of the education system, and do not benefit from learning that is vital to their intellectual and social development. Because of their lack of education, illiteracy among parents, unemployment, and illness multiplies the risk of non-schooling and the drop-out rate of kids throughout the country. Undeniably, many children from disadvantaged backgrounds are forced to abandon their education due to health problems related to malnutrition or to work to support the family. Said children are then made to work at child-labor factories that pay far less than minimum wage, or even worse, sold to child trafficking as sex slaves. This causes a vicious cycle amongst the country; unless a lucky someone finishes their education and successfully breaks the cycle. 

While living a life without woes, we often forget about the people in poorer nations who live off only $2.50 dollars a day. We take our water and food for granted, while many people don’t even have access to clean, drinkable water, let alone food to waste. When we are complaining about how boring the classes we take in school are, there are people out there can’t even recognize A to Z. Therefore, there are NPOs trying to improve the situation, and the UN is also focusing on this problem. Maybe we don’t have the ability to help them, but we can cherish what we have nowadays, and pray for the world to become better.