A few days ago, I was at a daytime homeless shelter - and heard some humbling quotes I thought I would share.
The first was from a man who said, "You go to Marquette? You haven't seen me sleeping around there, then?"
The second was from a 20-year-old who told me about a time in her life less than a year ago when she went for two months with no food, just water.
“I’m homeless but I have something, I have friends, people who care about me. That means more to me than money, I live on faith, people give me the energy to get up in the morning.”
She learned today that the police have a warrant out for her arrest, and she said it probably had to do with some kind of trouble she got into when she was 12 years old.
I conducted a survey with five people there who are homeless. All of them said they have stolen food to survive.
I'm not trying to be preachy, and I know I can complain as much as the next person myself, but these are some thoughts that have been on my mind the past several weeks that I thought I would express.
-In my politics class now, we're studying developing countries, and we read excerpts from a book called The End of Poverty, written by economist Jeffrey Sachs. I was reminded in this that 20% of the world's population lives on less than $1 a day (extreme poverty) and another 20% lives on less than $2 a day (moderate poverty). The rest of poverty, such as the poverty we see in the USA, is known as relative poverty.
Here is a passage from the book about a family in Malawi, Africa. "She reaches into her apron and pulls out a handful of semirotten, bug-infested millet, which will be the basis for the gruel she will prepare for the meal that evening. It will be the one meal the children have that day."
-Thousands of people are dying every day of treatable illnesses and diseases like diarrhea and malaria when a $10 malaria bed net could save their lives.
-People dying of AIDS in Africa are crammed 3 to a BED because they can't afford treatment and the hospitals do not have room for them and don't know what to do with them other than wait for them to die.
- I'm taking part in an initiative here called RU4PK, MU? which is a coalition of student groups working to raise money for the flood victims in Pakistan. The United Nations labeled this flooding the worst humanitarian disaster since the creation of the UN, in which 20 million people are still suffering, more than the damage of Haiti and Kashmir combined. Much of the country is still underwater, yet the media has been pretty silent about Pakistan.
- I read an article recently (posted on my facebook wall) which talks about how thousands of girls in Nepal are not getting educated because they cannot afford the uniform and fees. The cost is around $15 per girl for an entire year of school.
I think it is important to constantly remind ourselves of these disturbing facts and realize how fortunate we are to have been born in this country with such amazing opportunities before of us. Everyone has bad days, and we should not de-legitimize our feelings when we suffer, but it is crucial to remember that the majority of humanity struggles every day to merely survive.
here's a link with some great ideas of ways to do this in creative ways proven to help people start to overcome their poverty.
I will conclude with a quote from Bono:
"We can be the generation that no longer accepts that an accident of latitude determines whether a child lives or dies -- but will we be that generation? Will we in the West realize our potential or will we sleep in the comfort of our affluence with apathy and indifference murmuring softly in our ears? Fifteen thousand people dying needlessly every day from AIDS, TB, and malaria. Mothers, fathers, teachers, farmers, nurses, mechanics, children. This is Africa's crisis. That it's not on the nightly news, that we do not treat this as an emergency - that's our crisis."
