From
the readings in class last week, a quote that really interested me was from the
Global Health Watch article stated, “A substantial majority of humanity
does not have sufficient income to meet what might, by any reason standard, be
considered to be their minimal consumption needs”(18). This quote automatically
reminded me of the countless times I visited Jakarta, Indonesia and would see
children walking on the roads, coming up to the cars to beg for money or food.
My father is Indonesian and his entire side of the family lives in Indonesia, so
my family has visited there many times over the years. Jakarta, Indonesia is
currently listed as the sixth largest city in the world, with a total
population of 18,900,000(worldatlas.com). Like many large cities Jakarta is
filled with a mix of both very wealthy and very poor individuals. On one side
of the street there can be huge, luxurious malls and on the opposite side there
can be old, deteriorating shacks near the sewage that some people have to call
home.
No
matter what time of day it is, there is always traffic on the roads of Jakarta.
No drivers follow the road rules set. A road that is supposed to be two lanes
suddenly becomes five lanes, and while a light is clearly red, cars still
continue to speed through. Being in the car during traffic in Jakarta not only causes me to be fearful for my life, but also reminds me to be thankful for the life that I do have. Children fearlessly
walk through traffic, and sing or play instruments in order
to get the drivers and passengers attention. Every time we go to visit, the sight
of these children begging for money and looking through the car window with
desperate eyes breaks my heart.
If
you do give money to one child, in another five minutes there is bound to be
another child looking through the window,asking for money. It is very
overwhelming because you want to be able to help all the children, but there
are just so many of them and you can only provide so much. Knowing that so many
children are forced to beg for money on the dangerous streets of Jakarta makes
me realize that not only them, but their entire families must be struggling to
live day by day. Innocent, little children risk their lives on the streets to try and earn their daily income. Instead of receiving an education or playing with
their friends, these children must work to in order to survive. This quote from
Global Health Watch reminded me of this image because the children that
desperately beg for money on the sides of the streets clearly do not have a
“sufficient income” to meet their needs, whether it be food, clothes, or shelter.
These
children who are found begging on the streets are not receiving the
healthy and necessary amount of food needed for children their age. The lack of
money puts these children’s lives at risk, and most importantly their
health. A large percentage of Indonesia’s population lives in poverty, so the
future success of Indonesia’s next generation could be in jeopardy. All the
children who currently live in poverty and do not have enough vitamins and nutrition, may grow up to become a generation with numerous health problems.
I connected the quote from Global Health Watch to a quote from the novel Crime and Punishment,
written by Fyodor Dostoevsky. The quote states,
“Poverty is not a vice, that’s a true saying… But beggary, honored sir, beggary
is a vice. In poverty you may still retain your innate nobility of soul, but in
beggary—never”. I was required to read this novel in my senior English class
last year. Crime and Punishment is about a man named Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov,
a former college student who now lives alone and struggles with poverty. Out of
desperateness, he and ends up murdering a pawnbroker in order to steal her
money. Even after the murder Raskolnikov still struggles to have enough money
and begins to go mad because of the guilt he feels over time. The entire novel
goes through a series of events that further reveal his madness and true
feelings and thoughts about life. I connected this quote from and Crime and
Punishment to the quote from Global Health Watch because Raskolnikov does not
have enough money to fulfill his “minimal consumption needs”, so that is his whole
reasoning behind murdering the pawnbroker. His life of poverty caused him to go
mad. Raskolnikov struggles
to pay his rent and wears the same attire everyday because he does not have a
sufficient amount of income to fulfill his daily, minimal needs. The quote is
saying that living in poverty is difficult but having to beg just kills ones
spirit.
The
image of the children begging in the streets connects with the quote from Crime
and Punishment because the quote explains how Raskolnikov believes that poverty
is difficult to live through, but beggary just degrades an individual to the
lowest position possible. So, according to his quote the children, who live
their daily lives begging on the streets, are considered to be at the lowest
position possible. According to Raskolnikov, you can live through poverty, but
having to beg is just so degrading and torturous. If people believe this quote
to be true, I wonder how the children feel everyday of their lives having to
rely on the kindness of people’s hearts to receive their minimal needs. Do they
feel completely worthless and helpless?
So
many people, me being one of them, take the easy access to our daily necessities for granted. I can’t even imagine having to risk my life
everyday in order to just earn a small amount money that would allow me to have
my only meal of the day. Jakarta is just one city in this big world. There are
so many countless cities around the world whose streets are filled with just as
many children begging for money and food to survive.
-Lilia Halimuddin
-Lilia Halimuddin
In class text: Global Health Watch 3
Outside of class text: Crime and Punishment, By Fyodor Dostoevsky
Video:
Statistics: www.worldatlas.com
Statistics: www.worldatlas.com
Yes, I agree with you that the impact of poverty affects human health. Poverty and health causality is bi-directional. The poorest of the poor people have the worst health. In general, the lower the socio-economic status of the individual, the worse their health. This is a global phenomenon, and is visible in developing and undeveloped countries. Even America is no exception. We see people beg for money every day. They are on the side of the road, outside of grocery stores and gas stations.
ReplyDelete"Child Poverty in the Developing World" has summarized that the standard for measuring poverty is not only using "income", but referencing some of the basic rights of people's lives such as "home", "food" , "water", "sanitation", "health", "education". There are many social determinants related to this and oriented by people’s lives. Poverty is not only a lack of money. For people in developing countries, poverty is the lack of materials and resources to meet the most basic needs of life. If a person is without work and lacking basics such as food, clothing and water, how he can receive education, or get basic medical care? If the social security system is unreasonable, low-income people will be locked in a poor environment, bad living conditions, and lacking opportunities. How can people overcome and change their situation? In regard to housing, most of us are living safe and comfortable lives, but more than one-fifth of the population of the world lives in poverty. Around the world, if people cannot reach the average standard of living in their community, there is poverty. The standard of living in different countries is very different, but the impact of poverty is still the same: hunger, homelessness, lack of education and basic living resources. If you are stuck at home to take care of your family and have lost the opportunity to go to college, it can affect your job in the future. Without a proper education it is difficult to obtain a good job, hence low wages. People with low incomes often have a high proportion of smoking, alcohol abuse, unhealthy diets and sedentary habits. Poor communities have more crime than healthy ones. Age and disability all can have similar effect. Poverty leads to pressure and illness.
These children should be in school at this age, but have been burdened with caring for their younger siblings;or,to their families, they are helping to share responsibility. These faces and pictures are like a lens reflecting some of society’s weaknesses. Povery is illness. The social and economic conditions and their impact on people's lives determine the prevalence of risk they face, and the actions taken to prevent and treat diseases or sickness.
I found your entry to be well written and I strongly connect with your personal experience of seeing children beg. I was born and raised in Guam, a small island in the Pacific Ocean, and I was never exposed to people on the streets begging until I moved to Washington at age ten. I was shocked to see human beings sitting on the side of the street with a cardboard sign in hand, begging for food and spare change. Here in America, I have not had the personal experience to see an actual child begging, but the desire to help is just the same.
ReplyDeleteI agreed with all of the points you brought up, how poverty and health are directly intertwined with one another. Professor Cerón showed us a World Chart in lecture that clearly shows the trend of poorer countries having a higher death rate for children under age five. The deplorable part of this situation is that the connection between poverty and health is not a new, breakthrough idea. We have been aware of the poverty-health interconnection, and yet here you are today, witnessing young children begging on the streets of Indonesia. No parent wants to have their child risking their lives to beg for food and money. Therefore I agree with your point on how “their entire families must be struggling to live day by day.” That ties in with another problem you clearly addressed, the problem of inequality within a country itself, in this case Indonesia, “Jakarta is filled with a mix of both very wealthy and very poor individuals. On one side of the street there can be huge, luxurious malls and on the opposite side there can be old, deteriorating shacks near the sewage that some people have to call home.” That major gap is unfair to those who were born into a low-income family, or should I say a meager-income family. The lack of income leads to a lack of a well-balanced diet. The inadequate nutrition that the children are getting today will only add to their health problems later. For instance, if a child is not getting a moderate amount of calcium, then they are prone to developing osteoporosis later on in life. If that child is currently forced to beg just to eat lunch, then how can that child afford adequate health care later on? To add on to that, those children are out begging on the streets when they should be in school in order to get a good education. Having a good education is essential to land a stable job with a sufficient income that allows them to adequately provide for themselves and their future families. You incorporated the following quote from the Global Health Watch article,“A substantial majority of humanity does not have sufficient income to meet what might, by any reason standard, be considered to be their minimal consumption needs”(18). This shows the true cycle of poverty, and how it restricts the health of those in it. You also asked if the children feel completely worthless and helpless. I will attempt to answer your question with another: if those children know no other lifestyle, how can they come to the conclusion of being worthless and helpless?
According to Global Health Watch 3, “in 2000, the richest 10% of the world’s population was estimated to own more than 85% of the world’s total wealth. The poorer half of the world population owned only 1.1%.” This information is about a decade old, however, the realities that wealth is dispersed unevenly among the world and even more so unevenly dispersed within a country or region, shows that the vast majority of the world’s population are living in some state of poverty. As Lillia Halimuddin shared her personal experience encountering the poverty-stricken streets of Jakarta, Indonesia, the understanding of poverty transforms to mean more than just a statistic or a far off problem, but it begins to be understood within the context of a community. Poverty and health is not just a problem relevant to the communities who are negatively affected, but it is a global problem that is relevant to every person.
ReplyDeleteLillia Halimunddin said, “every time we go to visit, the sight of these children begging for money and looking through the car window with desperate eyes breaks my heart.
If you do give money to one child, in another five minutes there is bound to be another child looking through the window asking for money. It is very overwhelming because you want to be able to help all the children…” I personally understand how this feels, and I completely agree with the overwhelming emotions of wanting to do something, anything really. But even if every child could be given some resources, if the bigger problem of the country’s economy was not addressed, it would only be a temporary fix. These begging children indicate a much greater problem than just poverty; it points to the lacking economic and social structure of the community and country. The country needs economic growth and stability, a change that would gravitate towards permanent lasting change.
Lillia later compared the children’s poverty with a quote she recalled from Crime and Punishment about poverty and begging. However, no definite argument was made comparing the two subjects. Lillia questioned and implied that she disagreed with Rodion Romanovich Raskolnikov’a words, yet she never directly rebuked them. Therefore I felt compelled to do so. Beggary is not a vice; it is the innate human response to need. Begging does not indicate hopelessness, but on the contrary, it suggests the existence of hope—hope that this act of begging will result in food, money, resources, etc. I am in no way stating that beggary is an acceptable way of life, but beggary is a mechanism of survival in a environment where global health is lacking in many essential aspects: adequate amounts of food, water, resources, health, economy, etc. When the government and social infrastructure of a nation is lacking, beggary is the only option these kids have, that’s why they are doing it. I believe the bigger picture problem encompassing the begging children in the streets is about the urgency to strive for change. The anthropological necessity of comparison is important (comparing global problems between different regions). The purpose of making comparisons in global health is to envision positive change and to work towards achieving global health. Achieving global health is the goal.
I took away two main points from this entry. One is that there is an unmentioned interaction in the dichotomy of wealth, and therefore, health. Two is that the overall socioeconomics of poverty reinforce a cycle of poverty. I agree with Lilia on both these points.
ReplyDeleteLilia mentions that in Jakarta, one can see luxurious housing next to districts slammed by poverty. It is interesting how these extreme dichotomies of wealth really do happen right next to each other, and also how little they interact. If there is such wealth in next to such poverty, one would think that the wealthy would at least help the children. However, this juxtaposition of extremes happens all around the world, and still we see starving children living next to
Lilia also talks about wanting to help the beggar children, but that helping one child draws the rest to you. This is a very poignant feeling and very much reflects what people feel like when it comes to “glocal” health in general. We want to help everyone at once, but we just don’t have the resources for it.
This feeling of wanting to help works really well for the struggles in “glocal” health . In local communities, the people that we help are usually the random people who we can most immediately help. However, that doesn’t mean that the problem is fixed. Other people still have to deal with whatever condition is the problem. This is magnified on a global level. Take for instance, giving one country financial and humanitarian aid for a malaria outbreak. Though other countries are certainly being affected by the outbreak, we only have enough resources for a few countries or a few regions at a time. We know that the other regions are facing the problem, and there is nothing wrong (possible political tensions aside) with helping the other countries. However, we have to pick who gets aid first, which can often times seem arbitrary and unfair if you are from a region that is deemed a lower priority.
I also thought it was interesting when Lilia said, “The lack of money puts these children’s lives at risk, and most importantly their health.” This is an interesting shift in feeling empathy for the population in poverty to seeing a problem with this poverty. Lilia’s point is that people will grow up to be unhealthy because they are poor, only to continue being poor because they are unhealthy. For countries such as Indonesia, where a large percentage of the population live in poverty, health is now an economic issue. Business does not want to trade with countries that are sickly, economic or otherwise. But, if trade doesn’t happen and revenue isn’t created, then the people continue to be economically unhealthy, leading to continued pressures on personal health.
This is a very interesting point that was mentioned in lecture and the reading. The specific point that Lilia brings up though is staking our future on a generation of unhealthy children. The idea here is if we don’t take care of our children now, who will take care of us when we’re too old to care for ourselves? This also implies social capital in children and health.
It really is amazing to think about the percentage of the world’s population that lives in poverty. In North America we are so sheltered from the knowledge of how much the rest of the world struggles. There seems to also be a popular mindset throughout American culture that instills the idea into people’s heads that people who are in good socioeconomic positions have worked their way into that position without any preexisting privilege and the ones who are struggling to get by have gotten themselves into that situation and will have to work their way out. We can conclude that that ideology simply isn’t conducive to truly helping those at low points. As heavily based poverty is with the economic conditions of its region there are avenues that can be created by people themselves in which could provide some relief. An individual knowing that they cannot provide assistance to every struggling person out there but rather just doing what they can, personally, to provide any amount of assistance for another is key.
ReplyDeleteI have a friend who, about a year and a half ago, returned from living in Jamaica for a couple years. As attractive as the tourism commercials make Jamaica seem, severe poverty runs throughout a major portion of the island. In these poverty-stricken communities, though, there is a sense of care for one another that help the community populations survive. From what my friend had told me about the people there, I was able to develop an understanding of how important something as simple as even distribution of resources such as food can be. This is a practice that many members of the region participate in. They will give whatever they do not necessarily need to those who are in greater need and help each other get through the days. This is a prime example of people simply doing what they actually can do in order to improve the lives of others. This is the kind of mentality that can truly help a community. When aspects of economics enable people who are outside of this mindset to succeed, great disparities ensue. Taking our own nation for example, despite the US having great resources, “great opportunity” for its people, and the claim of equality running through its ideology we still have some of the greatest disparities the world see today. This is an issue that stems from the popular American idea that I shared earlier about working to set your place in society. If there was a mindset similar to the peoples of Jamaica running through our society and even Indonesia’s I feel that these people in low places, ranging from children to adults, would not have to stoop to the point of begging and loose whatever pride and nobility they have with themselves. Rather, there would be a pre-existing notion of simply doing what any individual can do, despite how much it is or how much assistance it may actually provide, to help the life of another.
Your topic of “children in the streets” was heart wrenching. The main point of your blog was the lack of adequate nutrition and education impoverished children face in certain countries, specifically Indonesia. You mentioned how in cities with large populations, like Jakarta, there is a huge divide between the extremely wealthy and the extremely poor, even though both groups often exist side by side: “On one side of the street there can be huge, luxurious malls and on the opposite side there can be old, deteriorating shacks near the sewage that some people have to call home.” Besides malnutrition, these kids often face dangerous “working conditions.” In order to receive a pitiful amount of money, impoverished children in Jakarta often walk through the streets, performing for passersby and drivers for cash. This type of work puts children’s lives at risk in the short-term (from being hit by a car) and the long-term (a lack of education destroys chances of upward mobility). You also mentioned how the sight of these children was upsetting, but that you felt powerless to enact lasting change. “If you do give money to one child, in another five minutes there is bound to be another child looking through the window, asking for money. It is very overwhelming because you want to be able to help all the children, but there are just so many of them and you can only provide so much,” you said. The connection between your blog and Crime and Punishment was that the squalor of the Jakarta street children is an example of how poverty degrades individuals to the “lowest possible position” in society.
ReplyDeleteYour blog struck close to home with me. I lived in India for a summer when I was seventeen, and while I was there I witnessed both immense wealth and extreme poverty. My host family owned a small mountain, and they employed four maids throughout the week to clean their palatial apartments. When I would wait for the rickshaw to school, however, I would see children digging through the gutter for scraps, or workers sitting in the garbage dumps without shoes, gloves, or proper protection. When I first arrived in Mumbai, I started crying at the sight of children begging for money outside the airport. The other American students and I pooled our extra money and snacks and handed them out to all the kids. By the end of the trip, though, I had become somewhat desensitized to the suffering I was surrounded by. It is terrible how these children are treated, but when I asked my host parents about charity work, they simply laughed. The reason they feel so little guilt, according to them, is that under the British rule, everyone was oppressed. Once India became independent, however, the rules of personal responsibility seemed to apply. Perhaps this is because India has been highly influenced by the United States – at one time, India used American currency more than the rupee. The caste system of India, though technically abolished, all influenced the position of beggar children in society. Kids from a certain caste grew up to be beggars, and those children wore specific clothing and carried whips to set them apart. I would agree that poverty degrades the individual to the lowest position in society, but that other factors throughout the world influence their “caste.”