Cycle of Poverty
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While on the surface poverty is often defined as a lack of income or assets, in the day-to-day lives of the very poor, poverty becomes a network of disadvantages, each one exacerbating the others. The result is generation after generation of people in chronically poor communities lacking access to health care, adequate housing, good nutrition and education; vulnerable to a host of evils, and powerless to improve their circumstances. These conditions often carry with them dysfunctional family and societal relationships, paralyzingly low self-esteem, and spiritual darkness.
More than one billion people today live on less than $1 per day. Roughly 3 billion people, about 45 percent of the world, live on less than $2 per day. About 70% of those living on less than $1 per day are women.
The poor face struggles in nearly every aspect of life. Poverty is a trap with six linked areas of disadvantage: lack of assets, physical weakness, isolation, vulnerability, powerlessness and spiritual poverty.
Material Poverty – few assets, inadequate housing and sanitation, little or no wealth.
Physical Weakness – a lack of strength from poor health and inadequate nutrition.
Isolation – a lack of access to services, information, markets, capital and infrastructure.
Vulnerability – few buffers against emergencies or disasters; at risk of being further impoverished by cultural demands such as dowries and feast days.
Powerlessness – lacking the ability to influence life around them, and therefore their own circumstances.
Spiritual Poverty – broken and dysfunctional relationships with God, people, the community and creation; spiritual oppression.
These elements of poverty are linked and each exacerbates the effects of the others, trapping the poor in a system of chronic disadvantage. Those caught in this web of poverty are typically malnourished, in ill-health, with low literacy rates, vulnerable to abuse, powerless to improve themselves, and with no understanding of God’s love for them.
More than one billion people today live on less than $1 per day. Roughly 3 billion people, about 45 percent of the world, live on less than $2 per day. About 70% of those living on less than $1 per day are women.
The poor face struggles in nearly every aspect of life. Poverty is a trap with six linked areas of disadvantage: lack of assets, physical weakness, isolation, vulnerability, powerlessness and spiritual poverty.
Material Poverty – few assets, inadequate housing and sanitation, little or no wealth.
Physical Weakness – a lack of strength from poor health and inadequate nutrition.
Isolation – a lack of access to services, information, markets, capital and infrastructure.
Vulnerability – few buffers against emergencies or disasters; at risk of being further impoverished by cultural demands such as dowries and feast days.
Powerlessness – lacking the ability to influence life around them, and therefore their own circumstances.
Spiritual Poverty – broken and dysfunctional relationships with God, people, the community and creation; spiritual oppression.
These elements of poverty are linked and each exacerbates the effects of the others, trapping the poor in a system of chronic disadvantage. Those caught in this web of poverty are typically malnourished, in ill-health, with low literacy rates, vulnerable to abuse, powerless to improve themselves, and with no understanding of God’s love for them.
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02/10/2011
02/10/2011
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