How do you stop poverty and malnutrition if you haven't lived in it?

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   aguacateposted 11 years ago

   How do you stop poverty and malnutrition if you haven't lived in it?
   
   How can we stop poverty in the large scale of things? If we only have sympathy for those who live in poverty rather than empathy, how can we ever understand what life is really like? Giving money to help poverty stricken nations has proven to fail; take Haiti for example, there has been more money dumped on that country and yet it still remains of the poorest countries on the face of the earth.
   Guatemala is the subject of my question. Malnutrition is an issue, but the eye from above cannot see what the eye in the street can see.

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2. 79

   junksellerposted 11 years ago

   I wrote a hub equating poverty to the air that people breathe--as in it being an inescapable condition that completely surrounds you, while people on the other side of the glass just looking at it seem to think it is something simple like changing a person's clothes. All they need is a new suit, they might say, but the reality is never that simple or that clear.
   
   I was reading a story about a lady in Haiti, graduate student I think by the name of Sasha Kramer, who went there to build toilets. What she came up with are really simple (what we'd call primitive) shacks with holes and a bucket. But she used all local materials and local labor and the wastes are taken and composted and used as fertilizer. It's a great example of appropriate technology, but it probably isn't ever something that would have been drawn up on a desk in an office, it is something that develops only by being immersed in the culture and the problem. The organization is called SOIL for anyone interested.
   
   The eye in the sky can play a role on a macro-scale and can do things like  fundraising and awareness, but I agree with you, that individual solutions are better when they are closer to the ground.
   
   Personally, I think we need to develop an entirely new economic model. Capitalism has failed to create a world of bounty for all or of equality and I don't think it ever will. What we need is a model where small clusters of people can work towards sustainability at their own pace.

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