One of the things that I hated about college and being in academic settings in general is how when some people are drawn into group discussion, they're unable to see the forest for the trees.
I'm just not the kind of person who'll try to dominate a roundtable discussion - if my point has already been made by someone else and I have nothing else of value to add, I keep my mouth shut. Even if I could have stated the point more eloquently or required less follow-up than the person making my p.o.v., I'm not going to jump in and beat the dead horse.
In case you didn't know, the focus of the program I'll be participating in the next year, (Americorps*VISTA) is in eradicating poverty: specifically by addressing what communities have expressed local causes of poverty to be. So, if people in my Durham community believe that folks are being brought down by dropping out of school and by gang activity, we work on those facets. It's not a program where the government tries to fix a problem by giving people subsidies.
Anyhow, we were having a group discussion about a) what poverty is and b) what causes it. People in the room were getting so heated over what they felt the causes to be (shy of causing real arguments, though), and I couldn't help but to think that the idea of poverty is such a subjective concept. The government can set guidelines for income to assess what poverty is, but when it comes down to it, isn't poverty a subjective thing?
I would be hesitant to call someone impoverished unless I heard them refer to themselves as being that way. Two families with identical income and identical resources may think of poverty two different ways. One may think that being impoverished is not having a television/car/name brand wardrobe. Another may think that it means they lack basic necessities such as food, water, and shelter.
In my opinion, the only way to eradicate poverty is to strive for 100% education of resources in a community - that is to say that every single household knows of what is available in their geographic constraints that can either help them better themselves, or at least be comfortable at the level they are. That doesn't mean that everyone is going to be rich (or even middle class, for that matter) - just that they'll have the same opportunity to access what they need. If they know resources are available and choose not to use them, then they're not impoverished - they're just poor.
I want to help people help themselves. The only way I can make my service worthwhile is if the community takes ownership of these programs after we help set them up.
Posted by Tiffany at July 26, 2006 03:54 PM | TrackBack