Definition Essay: What Poverty Means To Me

What Poverty means to me
Have you ever imagined a life where you don’t have the basic essentials to send your five year old daughter to school? This is a reality for many parents living in developing countries across the globe. The definition of poverty changes every day and it vary from place to place, we all have our own definitions of poverty. But to me poverty means lacking the basic human needs which include: clean and fresh water, nutrition, health Care, education, clothing and shelter because of the inability to pay for these requirements. Poverty is not the same in every country, as classified by Jeffery D. Sachs there are three kinds of poverty that exist in our world today. They include extreme poverty, moderate poverty and relative
As I mentioned earlier poverty has many different meanings to many different people living across the globe. For example the organization as we all know as the United Nations defines poverty as “Poverty is a denial of choices and opportunities, a violation of human dignity. It means lack of basic capacity to participate effectively in society. It means not having enough to feed and clothe a family, not having a school or clinic to go to; not having the land on which to grow one’s food or a job to earn one’s living, not having access to credit. It means insecurity, powerlessness and exclusion of individuals, households and communities. It means susceptibility to violence, and it often implies living in marginal or fragile environments, without access to clean water or sanitation”. Often times the way people define poverty is based upon their experiences and what they have read, saw about poverty. But my definition of poverty is what I have experienced with my own two eyes. I was born in a small country with a very small population called Guyana. Living in Guyana I have had to experience poverty growing up as a young child. At a very young age my parents didn’t have necessities to give me
For example poverty in America means not having a home or a job but in Africa poverty means having diseases, not having food, not having health care, not having nutrition, and not having health care about much more. Just because a poor country is in poverty doesn’t necessarily mean that it experiences the same problem that another country in poverty experiences. For example Guyana experiences poverty because for many years it has lack a poor government and poor economic policies. But in Kenya they experience poverty because they don’t have sufficient health care and food. But these are just a few there are many other reasons why a country may be stuck in the poverty