Roedah Mansour

GEOG 331/HONORS 231

January 12, 2015
Free-Write
1. How do we know poverty? How do we see it?
Most often, we know poverty to be characterized by a lack or an absence of basic
necessities such as food, shelter, financial resources or aid. An ordinary person of
the governmentally classified middle (but still struggling) class in America will
likely identify poverty as hunger, homelessness, bankruptcy, an extreme situation
that is elsewhere problem that we and our neighbors do not face. A problem
defined by the commercials on television that show young, empty bellies rounded
with air, sad faces and hands grasping for what seems to be so little, it is nothing in
our eyes (yet makes the difference of life for so many). We see poverty in our lives
in conjunction with soup kitchens, homeless campsites, beggars, yet we neglect
much of the poverty our nation faces, I learned in my last year of high school, with
families unable to sustain themselves. Poverty is vast. It is extreme in implication,
but is not actually qualified by the presence of nothing or the absence of all
(supplies) like many of us may have presumed. We see poverty as those who have
less than us; those without.
2. What are causes of poverty?
Causes of poverty include an imbalance or corruption (or ill prioritization of topics)
in politics, strife (be it national or civil discord, or international war and/or conflict)
and an unequal distribution of wealth and national finances powered by a
precedence of unequal opportunities and unequal power dissemination. These
causes also include pre-existing (unequal or unfair and changing) gender roles and
expectations, geographic location (where some places are more prosperous than
others with better chances of exploiting resources in those areas), unemployment
and the unavailability of jobs created by an unstable economy faced with funding
problems across the board and cuts (like those that occurred after the fiscal cliff).
Expensive education costs and the recently more heavily implemented expectation
of much higher education for a job with adequate pay, family life and upbringing
normative values instilled from it and societal roles all contribute to poverty as well.
It is often harder for one who is raised in poverty to escape it because they often
cannot afford the education necessary nowadays and also, people with disabilities
face issues of affording health care which ultimately is detrimental to their lives.
3. Where is global poverty found or located?
Global poverty is found/located everywhere. It takes place all over the world
because of the marginalized wealth kept from the masses (prime example: wealth

distribution in the US! Now take it to a global scale from the western countries to
the global south and we see a replication of this sad occurrence). Theres a cycle
of poverty that the world doesnt actually encourage to beat or leave, but rather
simply band-aide with care packages of financial aid and warped programs offered
by the World Bank to trap said global south countries in their systematic poverty
and dependence on others more well off. People most often think of the global south
when speaking of poverty, but neglect the impoverished populations in our own
lands. It can and does take place all over the world, especially in places where
policy and politics do not offer social welfare or aid to those struggling to make ends
meet or even to provide a means of bare necessities and sustenance to their
families. Governments that ignore such issues or cannot afford to deal with them
often meet the pitfall of growing populations of poverty.