The Growing Wealth Divide

Poverty

What is Poverty?

• Poverty is the deprivation of food, shelter, money and clothing that occurs when people cannot satisfy their basic needs. Poverty can be understood simply as a lack of money, or more broadly in terms of barriers to everyday life.

• Definitions:United Nations: Fundamentally, 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 food and clothing 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.

How does Poverty affect us?

Health: One third of deaths – some 18 million people a year or 50,000 per day – are due to poverty-related causes: in total 270 million people, most of them women and children, have died as a result of poverty since 1990.

Hunger: Rises in costs of living making poor people less able to afford items. As a result, poor households and those near the poverty threshold can be particularly vulnerable to increases in food prices. For example, in late 2007 increases in the price of grains led to food riots in some countries.

Education: Research has found that there is a high risk of educational underachievement for children who are from low-income housing circumstances. This often is a process that begins in primary school for some less fortunate children. Instruction in the US educational system, as well as in most other countries, tends to be geared towards those students who come from more advantaged backgrounds. As a result, these children are at a higher risk than other children for retention in their grade, special placements during the school's hours and even not completing their high school education.

What is being done for those in need?

• Increasing the supply of basic needs• Removing constraints on government services• Reversing brain drains• Controlling overpopulation• Increasing personal income• Economic freedoms• Providing more Financial services

Which are the groups helping?

•Center for Global Development (CGD),

• Child Poverty Action Group, End Poverty Now (EPN)

•United Nations Development Program

• Millennium Development Goals (MDG)

• Poverty Assessment and Monitoring.

Thank You!

Our Sources: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Povertyhttp://www.globalissues.org/article/26/poverty-facts-and-statshttp://www.poverty.com/http://www.thp.org/home?gclid=CK2-tt2h_rMCFQx76wodmCMA0Q

Remarks:We have learnt a lot about the effects of Poverty through the duration of doing this project. We also think that we have not only raised the awareness of others but ourselves too and bonded together more.

Team Members: Joshua Goh, Maverick Wong, Ong Wei Sheng, Royston Tan