Why Does Poverty Have A Dark Face? II

Oh dear, me! Do you want a carefully planned excuse for my negligence in keeping up with my blog or do you just want me to get to business? Well, it's typical that some people would like to know why I "disappeared" from the world of blogging for a while. If you thought that it was for lack of skill, hmmm...you may not be very far from the truth. But if you were a little bit empathetic, you would probably think that graduating from graduate school and job hunting are full time commitments of their own. Anyway!!! enough of whining and explaining. I am BACK!!! And let's see how long this romance will last before either of us (blogging and me) changes the other's mind :-).

I started by asking, "Why does poverty have a dark face?" in my last post. This question was just to help us see that truly as our mortal eyes can see the faces of the poor are usually dark. It's usual that racism and 'classism' have played integral roles in keeping some people rich and others poor. Even within races we find that certain people who are darker are often poorer. I would say that the plantation slaves were darker than the house slaves during slavery in the Americas, Europe and Asia . Members of the former group were bent over in farms often in the scorching sun and trying to stay alive while the light-skinned ones attended to the slave masters' houses - a privileged opportunity I presume. Whether our case studies are across races or within one's own house, we find that poverty has a way of making its subject disheveled and mean-looking.

I'm fully aware that many of the world's poor are women and children. In many societies, they were often the last to eat in many households. The men had to be first fed because they were warriors. Since communities could attack one another without notice, it was wise to keep the army ready, strong, and alert. But the truth is that many of these communities stay years without smelling wars or anything that resemble them, yet children are denied nourishing food and many die of malnutrition and starvation. Women who bear children aren't spared this ordeal. Many of them die during childbirth or even afterwards owing to poor nutrition. The world continues to lose women in many developing nations as termed in high maternal mortality rates. Sometimes it's over hunger, sometimes it's as a result of practices such as female genital cutting. However, as a practical individual, I strive for solutions rather than needless finger-pointing (except when I adjudge a situation hopeless). Here are a few ideas that I think might be useful to people who want them.

What Solutions Are Available?

I can't claim to have the panacea for world poverty. The United Nations has set up the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs) to help eradicate extreme poverty by 2015. While many nations have made strides in achieving some of these goals, the truth is that 2015 will not present the "end of extreme poverty" envisaged by the architects of this venture. While strides may have been made and drums carved for the "celebration" I doubt that all our dreams will come true in the next five years. I have always believed that "poverty" is both an internal and external problem. It is internal because no matter how much money, in aid and services, are poured into helping a people, if certain customs and traditions do not allow for their (speaking of development) effectiveness, then we might as well be pouring water into baskets. Thus, I have divided my 'suggestions" as both internal and external, to tackle the "root causes" of the challenges.