Poverty...how lucky word you are?

BY LEULSEGED WORKU:
How powerful you are? Even the Bible inscribes you and your victims by claiming “The poor will always be with us”. So what is your history?where is your origin?
Dear esteem reader even if I the the writer, knew that I am not an expert on the area of poverty reduction strategies or I did not even contribute a single piece on poverty for my graduation paper, I have full courage to open up my mouth what poverty means- and its associated problems.
Dear reader what do you think would be the response of a fish(assume it can hear and speak) if you ask it “what is water?”. What..? Water..? How funny question is that? water is water! I am sure that would be the only response you could get. Because the fish doesn't care about your molecular formula and other components of water- water is water for that fish,it is not expected to be expert. The same is true for me!even if several meanings and degrees had been provided for poverty if you ask me what poverty means i will tell you poverty is poverty what else it could be?
According to some sources extreme poverty,which is a manifestation of developing countries,is having a house hold income less than one USD per day. Can you imagine what one USD mean for a certain American citizen mean?(if he is generous enough) I am sure it is a bonus/tip for waiter or waitress in a certain cafe or restaurant.
In the case of relative poverty, it is a condition of having a family income less than half of the median income for that country. So dear reader were did you find yourself? Are you categorized in the first instance ?I am sure you are not, because if so you may not have an access to read this news paper.
Causes of poverty:
In both national and individual level there might be several factors that leads to poverty .But the primary and the visible ones are over population,inadequacy of education, absence of employment opportunities, and environmental degradation, are some of them.
Does rapid population growth cause hunger, or do they occur together because they are both consequences of similar social realities?
Currently there is universal consensus that poverty is the cause of rapid population growth,But this could only happen in the case where the people generate their lively hood by participating in traditional farming systems-subsistence style. However,if the people are engage in highly mechanized farming system or depended on commercial farming style they are an asset for their country rather than being liable to it.
Inadequate education have its own direct implication in fermenting poverty. Lack of education and illiteracy are common phenomenon in most developing countries. In this countries parents prefer to send their children to laborious work so as to generate their living rather than sending them to school. For this reason they would miss the opportunity to get education,which is one of the best way to escape poverty, in their early age. Consequently, they became burden for their country.
The other major factor that contribute over population in developing countries is the absence of family planning. In most case in the in rural parts of developing countries having too much children is considered as a sign of wealth and prestige or even some times it is consider as “blessing”. At the same time using contraceptives and other family plannings are considered curse or against the will supernatural power. For this reason the economic growth of that nation would be crippled by unbalanced population growth.
Effects of poverty:
While writing this peace the eagerness of this writer to understand the relation between poverty and mental illness was intensified, so he did not miss a single chance to call to councilling Psychologist ,Birhanu Alemu, whom he is working at AIDS Resource Center(ARC) here in Addis Ababa, whether there is a relationship between poverty mental illness and violence. “there is a relation ship between the two”said Birhanu,According to him researchers have indicated that poverty and mental illness are correlated. The lower a person's socioeconomic status, the greater his or her chances are of having some sort of mental disorder. But it it is hard to say which one is the cause and which one is the effect.
In most cases it is common to observe the poor developing victim thinking. Their mind always produce negative images and it tells them “you are worthless,you don't belong to this planet,look at your friends can you see how fortunate they are....?” Because of this monologues they will experience high rate of mental illness and high rate of suicide.
Therefore, in order to escape from such kind of stress they prefer to hide themselves in drugs,which seems a short term radical solution. Consequently,their previous smooth social interaction will interrupt and they would create their own “independent island” which is full of illustration and dreams.
It is by this time they will develop a sense of low esteem and became too aggressive for the society. When the problem became too critical(if they did not get any treatment very soon)they would reflect superior complexity by engaging in several criminal activities to show the society their superiority.
Economically disadvantageous people involve in criminal activities for several reasons. But we can not say for sure economic reasons would lead to crime and violence for there are several economically disadvantageous groups who did not involve in criminal activities.
Since those economically disadvantageous people are exposed to absence of basic necessities and they are victims of illiteracy and malnutrition,when economic problems became to acute they prefer to avoid the so called “yelugnta” and all other moral standards which the society designed and they would engage in criminal activities.
Related to this it has became common to observe observe youngsters in some poverty impoverished villages of Addis snatching mobile phones,using drugs (what they call it ganja),drinking locally made alcoholic beverages katikhalla,tej,chat chewing,sexual abuses and gambling have became a common phenomenon.