Women and Children
WHO AND WHY?
It's no secret that poverty exists in extremely large numbers across the globe, but who knew women and children were some of the hardest hit by this devastating cycle? According to the article
Rich World, Poor Women by Bill Moyer, "In many places, women and girls are often the last to eat when food is scarce." Gender inequality is often the result of a cultural or religious belief that women are not capable of doing the things that men are. Men and women across the globe have been brainwashed into the idea that women are valuable beings- except for reproduction. The result of such discriminatory behavior results in masses of
uneducated women, masses of
unemployed women, and ultimately, masses of women and children in extreme poverty. Fortunately, the United States has come a long way in dealing with discriminatory practices in education
and employment; the same cannot be said about women in
other countries.
WHAT IS BEING DONE?
A large percentage of United States citizens are under the impression that at least a quarter of our nation's annual budget is reserved for humanitarian/development projects-
wrong. In fact, Jeffrey Sachs, director of the Millennium Project, reports, "... [the amount of money for development assistance] is far less than 1 percent of the federal budget
." That's a
HUGE difference. We have to keep a better watch over how
our money is being spent.
WHAT SHOULD BE DONE?
As stated earlier, the United States is giving far less than it should to development projects across the globe. I suggest that our defense budget be cut significantly so that we can contribute to poverty alleviation projects as we should. The United States is considered the
most prosperous country in the world, there is no acceptable reason why it's among the nations giving the least. I also think it wouldn't be such a bad idea to designate a
tiny percentage of income to poverty alleviation projects. If each person in the United States gave a couple dollars here and/or there,
millions of lives would be saved each year. It doesn't sound like that would be too hard to accomplish.
First off I want to comment on the visiuals/design of your blog. Looks really cool and I can tell you put alot of effort in! Secondly, I wanted to comment on your update to the question what should be done?- In your blog you mention that we don't give as much as we should to the development of projects across the globe. I definitely agree with that statement 100% after reading about Africa's 50% EXTREME poverty rate. I think there is absolutely no excuse as to why a country should be that poor when there is a country with standards of living as lavish as ours. but then after reading the powerpoints about America's inequality and poverty rate being the highest among 11 industrialized countries was a huge shocker to me and made me realize that although yes, we should be aiding in other countries, we also apparently are not doing enough to help the poor in our OWN countries. After all, they say be the change you want to see in the world. So, maybe in a way helping poverty here at home is our first step to helping poverty globally. IDK- just a thought.
ReplyDeleteI agree with you on cutting back on funding in other areas, specifically defense programs, in order to save lives by funding poverty projects. It'd be great to actually put money somewhere in order to save lives rather than take them.
ReplyDelete-Jina Watson