Recently, I’ve watched two very powerful documentaries about poverty and thought I would address this issue in my post because I believe in order to make a difference and take action, one needs to fully understand the problem first. The documentaries I am talking about are Poverty, Inc and A Place at the Table. Both movies are very gripping and allow the audience to enter this new and unknown world and even imagine what it would be like to be in those people’s shoes.
Now, there are several reasons why poverty still exists. Firstly, a large portion of the world’s population is not familiar or should I say knows very little about poverty. Secondly, rich countries or states do not take the right approach to solve the problem. I know you might think: ‘What are you talking about, Gergana? Rich countries do a lot about poverty, they send free food and clothes to Africa.’ And that is true- the US, for instance, does deliver free food to impoverished countries and not only that but there are tons of charities which do raise money in order to make poverty history. Not to forget to mention, the large number of people, including lots of celebrities such as Angelina Jolie, who go to countries like Africa to volunteer and help with teaching, healthcare etc. However, the upshot is, none of these things actually help to end poverty. Why? Well, it’s pretty simple- when rich countries send free products to impoverished countries they don’t help them but affect these countries’ economy negatively. The reason why is that people who are in need take advantage of the imported free goods instead of make the effort to save some money and buy products from their own country which would, consequently, benefit the economy. The thing is you simply cannot end poverty by giving people free stuff as it only solves the problem for the time being. The way to really make poverty history is to help stimulate economic growth.
Now, I am no expert and am probably not the best one to enlighten you on this particular topic but one thing I do know is that those two documentaries made me critically look at the whole situation and not be misled by things privileged people, as I dare to call all of us, do in favor of people in need just to look good in front of others or even gain popularity and recognition. Poverty, Inc takes place in Africa so it shows the problem on a much broader scale, whereas A Place at the Table talks about poverty in the United States and what it can lead to such as students having difficulties in learning at school and not having enough energy throughout the day due to food deficiency. I do strongly recommend you watch the documentaries because I believe we all need to educate ourselves on this topic.
