GLOBAL NEWS

Poverty in the World and Sweden

Poverty is a widespread issue in the whole world but also something everybody wants to counteract. There are one billion people in the world who live in extreme poverty. Even in Sweden, poverty is a problem as 100 000 people live in it. Those who earn $ 1.90 per day are considered extremely poor according to the World Bank.

Reasons? There are many reasons why people are poor. A country may have high unemployment which makes people get low salaries or no pay at all. Low tax revenues make for example healthcare and infrastructure worse. Widespread corruption makes the country’s power unreasonable etc. Small industry sector means that a country can’t export goods to the same extent and then doesn’t make money on them. Underdeveloped and bad infrastructure means that you can’t transport people and goods. High external debt allows countries to not put money on people without having to focus on repaying large debts. War and the like also often make countries poor and many of the poor countries today have previously been colonies. All these things are examples of things that can make a country and the people in it, poor.

What is Poverty? Poverty is more than lack of money. Poverty may be malnourished, polluted water, no education, no access to healthcare, unable to decide on their future, be homeless, powerless, etc.

From The Learning Classroom Project. Issue No.1, 2018, No Poverty

Worldwide

Who are affected? Poverty affects many people in the world, but those who are the hardest hit are children. Children constitute one third of the population in the world, but in the meantime, children make the half of the population who lives in extreme poverty. Poverty affects children's physical, intellectual and emotional development. The poorest low-income countries have a large, very young population, and poor families usually have many children. Poor countries are usually not gender equality. Girls and women are harder affected by poverty than boys and men. Poverty tends to go from generation to generation. Living the parents in poverty, it is easy for children to get an unhealthy start in life and often do not have education. It often leads to the children ending up in poverty even when they grow older.

Where is most poverty? Countries south of Sahara have has the highest proportion of poor people, there every other person lives in poverty. South Asia has the highest number of poor people, as 36% of the population live poor, which is half a billion people. In low-income countries, there is a big difference between children in rural areas and cities. It is more common for people in rural areas but also in the suburbs and slums of the towns. Poverty is also found in high income countries where there are problems with uneven allocation of resources and big economic and social disparities. These problems exist throughout the world.

Sweden In Sweden there are also similar problems. The most common cause of poverty in Sweden is that people are not educated, leading to low or no salary at all. Those who get low salary cannot afford to buy necessary things, but it is optional. Some cannot afford glasses, buses or recreational activities, while some do not even have food or roof over their heads.

Many disabled people also cannot afford to pay care or help in their daily lives. Poverty will also affect the children as it is common for them not to feel equivalent to other children.

Women are usually poorer than men. Nine out of ten most common jobs, women have, on average, a worse salary than men, despite doing the same job. This is because women usually must be home to take care of their children more often than men. Another reason may also be that the man's job is better paid because you work with technical stuff.

By: Kajsa Lindholm and Abdiladif Abdisalam, SA2018

OPINION: Poverty? No, Thanks!

In every country, there is some kind of poverty. There are always some people who have money issues and difficulties to handle that others consider being normal. This poverty also exists in Sweden, a land that’s pretty rich. So what can we do in our society, Vilhelmina municipality, and how can we spread information about poverty? We want the poverty to end because everyone should be able to cope with their everyday living without having to worry about money. Children in families should also be able to afford a class trip or to buy warm clothes for the cold winter here in Sweden if you get sick, you should be able to afford medication. So we think it’s important that as many as possible are informed about poverty, in all ages, even here in our school Malgomajskolan. We think that if we bring up this topic in schools and other places that can lead to other young people taking their own initiative to lower the poverty or/and make better choices like example donate to charity or other. If we try to end poverty the class difference will be smaller in the society, which can lead to fewer people living on welfare and lower taxes for the other people. Also if we end poverty more people can get an education and later on get a job to provide themselves. Education is a very important part of the society's base because without educated people the society won’t work. So if everyone has an opportunity to get go to school and get an education, everyone will be able to bring something back to the society and make it move forward. Yes, there will always be somebody who says that you can never end poverty and that it will always be someone with money issues. Well maybe, but we can always lower that part, to begin with, and who knows how the society will look after that. We think that it is better if very few people are poor than many. So we think if everybody helps a little bit, we can make big changes together. Because the thing is, that little does much for people who are in need of help. So please do the small thing in your everyday life you can do to help others, cause if you were in their situation, wouldn’t you like to have a helping hand as well? You can do easy things to help people whos in need of money like buy second hand, it’s both cheap and the money goes to people in need. You can also participate in actions like “Majblomman” and “Aktion Julklappen” those are projects that every year has a focus on people with money issues. Donate things is also good, both to local organizations like PMU here in Vilhelmina or to organizations who deliver your donation directly to a family who needs it. Things you can donate is toys, clothes, money, types of furniture and much more. Remember, your trash can be another ones treasure.

By: Brenda Alvarez and Li Karlsson SA 2018

How Do We Address Poverty at School?

Our class, social science class of the first year is doing a project with other schools regarding the 17 Global Goals of the United Nations. We went for an interview with Per Lindberg, the principal of Malgomajskolan, to ask him a couple of questions about the global goals. How high do you prioritize the work with reduced poverty? Per Lindberg says that our class is the pilots of the project with the UN's 17 global goals. Per has a wish that more education could be connected to the global goals. Per came to the conclusion that poor countries lacked a functioning school system. The school is so great because it helps students to anchor respect for human rights and to understand what democracy is about.

What do you at Malgomajskolan do to spread the message about the UN:s work for reduced poverty? How do you do to pay attention to the UN day? Per sighs and says that they are really terrible at informing about the UN day. He asks us if we have any ideas.

What’s the best thing you can do to make Vilhelmina less poor? What we can do is to spread awareness that knowledge is important, to inform about the human rights, democracy and to criticize our sources. But what we specifically at Malgomajskolan can do is to get more people educated and hopefully so that they can go to university. Because we in Vilhelmina have a high rate of our population that has a low level of education. How active are you about UN’s global goals? Per responds that the vision is that all programs would work with the 17 global goals, because the goal stretches through all of society, any group, class, assignment.

By: Gabriel Bergsten and Edvin Enerstedt, SA2018

Lennart Olsson: The Red Cross Can Save Lives

Lennart Olsson is the chairman of Vilhelmina’s Red Cross organisation. He is also teaching Spanish in our school. We went to him to ask a couple of questions about what the Red Cross does in Vilhelmina and the world. How high do you prioritize the work with reduced poverty? We don’t work directly with that question, we are a help organization and we work to relieve damage, help people to survive and that can be connected to poverty, you may not have enough money to buy clothes or food and that's where we can help. But we have no political goal. How do you do to spread the word about the UN day We don’t specifically celebrate the UN day. We do have our own red cross day on the 8 May. What is the best thing you can do to make Vilhelmina less poor? We help the most exposed first. We have capacity and knowledge about things that can save lives. How active are you about the UN’s global goals? We have our goals because the world changes drastically. The red cross work to ease and to prevent suffering, but our goals can look similar to the UN’s goals, we share missions and cooperate. We don’t work with war and peace in the same way, we repair consequences and we also have a peacemaking role. Do you agree with Per that the school has an important role to educate about the human rights, democracy and source criticism and that is contributing towards the aim to reach the global goals? Yes I agree with Per, the people's will is dictating! The school has a very important role

By: Gabriel Bergsten and Edvin Enerstedt, SA 2018

Susanna Rolfsdotter of Vilhelmina municipality:

Hard to Tell What Counts as Poverty Susanna Rolfsdotter is the person in charge over the social service of Vilhelmina and this is what she replied to our questions. Your thoughts are pretty difficult to answer because it’s hard to tell what counts as poverty, there aren’t any given criteria to what should be met for someone to be considered poor, there is no clear definition of the concept of poverty and how financial vulnerability is to be measured. Because of that, I will briefly describe different dimensions/concepts. From a historical perspective there was a measure of poverty such as constant hunger, bad clothes, poor living and bad health. To be poor meant that you didn’t have the most necessary things as food, clothes and living. Today this measure doesn’t have any function here in Sweden because almost everybody has incomes that rise above the limit of poverty. Here in Sweden we often use the term “low income standard” It’s used to specify households with low income. The term brings up how the income of the household is enough to cover the most basic costs such as living, home insurance, childcare, local travels and so on. Low income standard means that the income isn’t enough to pay for these expenses. In Sweden it’s about 6 percent of the population that have low income standard. Here in Vilhelmina, people who haven’t got enough income can apply for maintenance support “social welfare” at IFO, individual and family care unit. Right now we have a lot of focus that the UN convention of the rights of the child should be Swedish law. What can the IFO do to make Vilhelmina less poor? A very interesting question. I think it’s very important to spread the value of how meaningful education is. For example by getting an education you have bigger opportunity to get a job. Vilhelmina municipality is a municipaity with great ambitions. Having said that, it’s very important for the people who want to stay here get the possibility to do that. By finishing high school and maybe go on to the university the individual can contribute a lot to the municipality and to themselves The global goals, in one way Ifo works with this every day on different levels. Poverty, Hunger, by granting maintenance support. Health and wellbeing, for example counseling. We strive to treat everybody fair, equal, not to be judged by gender, ethnic belonging or sexual orientation. It’s difficult to answer what we need to invest in the most. Maybe we need to see more what every person can to to improve the life standard for many people, that is most important.

By: Gabriel Bergsten and Edvin Enerstedt, SA2018

FOOD FOR THOGHT: You got the lucky side of the coin

We have seen people who have struggled with their finances and who can barely get through the month. We have always known through media that people in other countries are having trouble with money but never realize that people around us have struggles, too. It opened our eyes about the society we live in and our interest to make a change. Have you ever thought about poverty in the world? Has it even crossed your mind? Do you see poverty somewhere in your everyday life? Have you seen it on tv or someone who is begging outside your local stores? What do you do then? Do you change the channel? Do you turn your eyes somewhere else? Or, listen to the information you receive and make an effort to make a change! We would want to spread knowledge about what every individual can do to reach the global goal, no poverty, that the United Nations manifested. When people live in extreme poverty, many become desperate and are prepared to do anything to support themselves. The children are forced to work and their right of a normal childhood is taken away from them. A pattern that we see in countries that are extremely poor is that almost all of them have some type of child labour. We believe that nobody can do everything but everyone can do something and with that, we want to inspire people to donate money to an organization that helps people around the world, for instance, organizations like UNICEF, or buy things that are fair-trade. You can also help out locally, to contribute for an association like Church of Sweden (which helps people both locally and internationally). You can join the organizations and participate in political parties that battle against poverty in the world. Some of the organizations also offer you a chance to voluntary work in different countries. That is also a good way to get knowledge and influence the organizations or parties with ideas and suggestions to reach the global goal and make this earth a better place for everyone to live in. Most of all countries living in poverty today have once been colonies of the western world. We enslaved the population, used up all their natural resources and left the countries in chaos and in total desolation. So it’s no more than right that we come together and fix the situations of the countries that are suffering from poverty. In order for a change to happen, you must engage in society and its problems. It can be hard to believe that you can make a difference but we know that we would have acted differently if it were our family who had it rough and our children that were working in those factories. With knowledge, we know that we can make a change. But it requires everyone to help and make their voices heard. It is everyone's responsibility to make a change and destroy poverty once and for all. We should not underestimate what we can achieve together.

“If you want to make the world a better place, take a look at yourself, and make a change.”

- Michael Jackson

By: Amilia Warda and Nora Enerstedt

A step in the right direction Over 2 billion humans live in extreme poverty today. Poverty is so much more than just money. It’s also about the human rights for survival which is important for you to develop as a person. Poverty does not look alike in the different parts of the world, you can still be poor even if you don’t have a roof or food. Poverty is all around us, all the time, even if we don’t know it.

What is poverty? There are some differences from a poor country to another. You can be poor in many ways and some things that characterize a poor country is for example high unemployment, low salaries, low taxes, widespread corruption, underdeveloped infrastructure and little production. Today can many things count as poverty, UNICEF considers that when children lose their essential human rights for survival they become poor. It’s also about reduced development, health, nourishment, clean water, toilets, education, shelter, information, and participation.

Do we reduce poverty?

There is a lot of organizations who help and support poor countries and poverty. We have UNICEF and UN who is really dedicated to this subject. They have many projects that help children to get clean water, going to school and medication. For example, they are in a place where it’s necessary and drill wells, build toilets and spreading knowledge. UN works every day to better living conditions to the people that are in need. They have many projects and we can also support their work.

You can help change the world!

There are many things you can do to change the living conditions in other countries. If you want to help you can give money or become a member of an organization. If you are a member of any of these organizations you give them a small amount of money so they can improve their work. You can also become a global sponsor where you donate around 11 USD per month. Then, your money gives street children and orphaned kids a chance to go to school, support and a better life.

If you are very dedicated to this cause you can become a volunteer who is in place to help develop the education or decrease poverty. If you don’t want to give money, don’t worry. There are many options that counteract poverty as give your old clothes or belongings to charity. Local there are organizations as Röda Korset (The Red Cross, Rädda barnen (Save the Children) och Myrorna (owned by the Salvation Army) which you can support. If you donate your old clothes isn't just good for poverty, also for sustainable development.

Poverty nearby In Sweden often the term is used “Low Income Standard”. It’s meant by how your income is enough to pay the necessary costs. That is of example living, home insurance, childcare, local travels, and food. In Sweden, it is 6% of the population who has a low-income standard. The difference between poverty in Sweden and other poor countries is that in Sweden you only have problems with “smaller” things. It could be having a “shitty” apartment and old furniture and not have enough money to live. In other countries being poor could be not having a roof over your head, no food at all or clothes. In Sweden it is easier to get help from society than in poor countries, we have for example organizations and authorities like Majblommekommiten (The May Flower Committee) and social services. Majblommekommiten is where parents can apply for a sum of money for something their children need. - Support for people with low-income standards, for example, is that they contact IFO, Individuals and Family Care, and seek social support, "Social contributions". One way to measure the so-called poverty in a municipality can be to review how many people are dependent on support. Supply aid is an aid that can be granted to persons who do not have sufficient income of their own. The supply support shall guarantee people a reasonable level of living, like food, clothing, rent for accommodation. There is, therefore, no room for anything extra, such as a holiday trip or something else.” says Susanna Rolfsdotter, head of social services, IFO of Vilhelmina municipality. In Vilhelmina, November 2018 there is a total of 284 people that need support from IFO. Of them, there are 90 people under the age of 18. Picked up from SCB, Statistiska Centralbyrån (Statistics Sweden) is for example, for a family consisting of two adults with two children, 5 and 12 years, low-income standard means disposable income below 20,700 kronor (2289.97 USD) per month, calculated for the year 2015. For a single parent with two children, the limit reached 16,800 kronor (1858.53 USD). The example refers to a family housing in a municipality with more than 75,000 inhabitants not belonging to Greater Stockholm or Greater Gothenburg. This is how the world and Sweden looks like. The poverty is everywhere and we can’t ignore the problem, there are so many who needs help. Together and alone we can make difference even if it’s takes time. If we all do something, we will be going in to the right direction. By: Sara Persson and Nathalie Gejland, SA2018

A LETTER TO THE EDITOR Have you heard about the sustainable development

goals of the UN? Well, now you have!

The first goal is about abolishing the extreme poverty, it is considered being the people that live on only 1.25 US dollars or less. In Sweden 0% of the population is so poor, but in Zimbabwe there are 21%, in Kenya 37% and in Burundi 72%. Those are frightening figures that NEED to be changed. Since 1990, poverty has sunk with about 70%, which proves that it actually works to work against poverty.

So what can you do? You can become a monthly donor, join an organization, trade sustainably, you can spread knowledge and show interest in wanting to know about it. No one can do everything but everyone can do something! Around a hundred years ago Sweden was one of the poorest countries of the world and many people emigrated. This shows that it works to go from poor to a well-functioning country where everyone is entitled to food, housing and a job.

No poverty!

By: Maja Svensson SA 2018