Personal Experience With Poverty
How much do you care about poverty?
Poverty can be an issue that people hear about and claim they care, however for a lot of people the issue seems so removed from their comfortable lives that they cannot properly show empathy and relate. It’s not entirely their fault, if you’ve never experienced it you cannot truly feel what these people are feeling, and then how are you really supposed to help?
I am not immune to this either, I did not grow up in poverty and have lived comfortably all my life. I am extremely fortunate to have what I have and I do not take it for granted. For most of my life, I would hear stories about the homeless or starving kids in Africa, but it was so distant from my comfortable life that it was hard to truly relate.
When I was in middle school, however, I got to see firsthand the impact poverty can have on some people. In 7th and 8th grade I went with my religious education class to deliver food, clothing, and other essentials to the homeless. We took the hour train ride to New York City to help out some of the less fortunate.
We did this mission at night as this is when more homeless people are out, giving us a chance to meet them. The purpose was not simply to give them food and clothes and then leave, but to strike up a conversation and get to know them. It was in doing this that I changed my perspective on what it means to be extremely poor and without basic essentials to live.
Me and my group talking to these people had a real impact on me. I realized they were not in some faraway distant land but living among us. Not only were they normal people, but they could be anyone, your friends, family, loved ones. People who had just made some bad decisions when they were young, whether that be getting into drugs or going to prison, are now affected for the rest of their lives. It also struck me how embarrassed these people were at their situations. Many of them felt worthless and like they are a burden to society.
This all had a major impact on me and it changed the way I view the subject to this day. Presently, I see the impoverished as everyday people in an unfortunate situation, and people who can truly be helped. I feel if some solutions that are detailed in this blog are put into practice, they could make a huge difference in millions of lives. This makes me more motivated to help and develop useful solutions to solve these problems.
