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Tedtalk on poverty and my response
Poverty is an important question that
comes up in all societies in the world. But the question that comes up always
is what exactly is poverty? And the other question that comes with it as a sub
question is how do we define it and what are the characteristics of it? Looking
at a couple of videos on Tedtalk, a nonprofit site in the internet that is
“devoted to ideas worth spreading”, I managed to come up as well as back up and
discard my view of what is poverty and also come up with an answer that perhaps
is able to answer the question. After browsing through some videos on the topic
of poverty, one particular one that caught my attention when I read the title
of the video was one titled Iqbal
Quadir: How mobile phones can fight poverty. The reason I found the title to be interesting
was because I saw the word mobile phone, which almost everybody in America has
as well as the word poverty. This video talks about how Iqbal Quadir is
a humanitarian who helps out with the poverty with his business GrameenPhone, a
phone company that serves in the poor country of Bangladesh. One key idea that
he emphasized in the discussion/ presentation that he made is the idea that
“connectivity leads to productivity”. He explained the concept of this and
after looking at the presentation, his logic did make sense. He said that Bangladesh gets more revenue
with his company than with the aid they get from the more powerful nations. His
presentation does seem reasonable and the numbers do seem to add up because I
have seen that happen in real life in México where I am from. Before, there
used to be no phone whatsoever, and now there is all that types of technology
like cell phones and house phones, there is a lot more activity happening and as
the guy calls it, a lot more “productivity” in the whole ranch as a whole. The
other video that really caught my attention was a video called Becky
Blanton: The year I was homeless, which talks about basically how from one day to another she became homeless
because in part she wanted to because she wanted to experiment and also because
she didn’t have a job. She called herself a “working homeless”, which is the
new term they came up with the trained professionals that lost their job due to
the recession. Then she said something like there is still other people that
are straight up homeless. The ones that straight up don’t have anything except
the money they get panhandling and the junk they collect from street garbage
can. One main idea that I got from these two videos is that poverty can be
characterized in many different groups such as the amount of income they have
as well as the social status and what society defines as “poor”. What we
consider as poor might now be the same if we say a person was in a different
country. For example, when I go to Mexico they consider me rich because due to
the fact that I’m well dressed and have a lot of money when I go over there,
when in reality I’m just as the same as them but just because the social norms
change. In the end I say that poverty is just a lifestyle that people
characterize in a different way. A person with a good car can still be poor but
just doesn’t reflect it. Also, that can happen the other way around. But in the
end, it all has to do with the society that you live in. These Tedtalks are
really interesting and also very informative cause it gives you different views
of what people consider as poor.
1st video:
2nd video:
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