The DigitalEnvironmentalist: Blog Action Day: Poverty and the Internet

JOINING BLOGSPOT/BLOGGER'S annual blog action day is a privilege where I could share my time in a small, simple and different way thru my website. The theme is a pressing issue and much more requires attention than war or anything else. It is beyond war between guns and missiles, or armies and extremists but it is a war against hunger and deprivation from basic needs in life.

Awareness and access to information is instrumental in reducing or alleviating POVERTY around the world. Worldwide web (www) or the internet is a powerful tool to disseminate information and assistance for society that needs urgent attention. Access to right organisations and individuals are vital to properly address the problem and somehow facilitate immediate action with avaiable resources. Thus, combating and alleviating poverty is a big challenge particularly for a developing nation to ensuring every citizen has direct and sustainable access to basic services, especially food, shelter and education.

Utilising google and yahoo search engines, there are numerous interesting links that discuss POVERTY. From various press releases to private and public initiatives/programmes, from images to videos, and of course from blogs to blogs! There is so much information on-line that provides the spectrum of POVERTY. As my simple gesture of my contribution on blog action day is to highlights some of them and briefly reflects each of these links.

Defining Poverty. Wikipedia defines poverty as "deprivation of common necessities that determine the quality of life, including food, clothing, shelter and safe drinking water, and may also include the deprivation of opportunities to learn, to obtain better employment to escape poverty, and/or to enjoy the respect of fellow citizens". It is interesting to note that access to "clean and potable" drinking water and "better" jobs are other aspects to be addressed in poverty alleviation.

Causes of Poverty. The site has relevant posts and links that explains the main causes of poverty, including shocking facts and figures to show the extent of this global problem. Poverty is being tagged with politics, corruption, degradation of the environment, ethics, and land ownerships.

Spectrum of Poverty. Poverty is a worldwide threat which this site explains the range or gamut of it: hunger and diseases (AIDS, TB, diarrhea, and measles). According to UN, almost 25,000 people die every day of hunger or hunger-related causes which brings to a ratio of 1 person = every three and a half seconds, and mostly children die.

Speaking of children, there were three tragic events happened last year in my home country, the Philippines when two young boys and a girl (in different locations) decided to end up their lives due to poverty. It was really sad to hear their stories which inspired one of my Multiply contacts/friends to write his own reflection. It is worth reading it and I do believe that Roland sincerely voiced his concern about the role of the youths of today and how poverty affects their hopes and dreams becomes a reality.

Roland's, ROPE OR HOPE reminds us of the challenges that poverty brings to the next generation, and as he finally says, "Imagine if the youth of today are living with all their hopes...if they are reached out and are all groomed to be the next generation of leaders ... if such imagination comes to reality... I couldn’t even imagine how perfect the future of our nation would be!

So many images flooded in the internet which vividly show the extent of the damage that poverty brings to the people and community, and will continue to affect more lives in the years to come if this is not given utmost attention especially by our current world leaders. Some of these revealing faces of poverty posted in Flickr on Global Poverty (Note: The images below were taken from CARF's photostream)