Wednesday, October 15, 2008


For todays Blog I will be talking about Poverty...

For many people in the U.K and around the world Poverty is something that happens in third world and developing countries and without saying it doesn't I wanted to point out how its happening right here, and across the world in the developed countries.

The old saying when I was a child was 'the haves and the have nots' never is that truer than in 2008. I'm not talking about people who have been affected by the credit crunch but by everyday people who before prices of food began to rise had problems feeding and clothing themselves and their family. 

I know of a young girl who at the age of 15 became pregnant. Now I know some may think this is a dumb kid she shouldn't have got pregnant, but you know she did and she kept the baby. She had grown up in care and for the first time it was something she could love and would love her back without adding conditions onto it.

Now she is 22 and she has a son of 7 who is a great kid who is loved more than any child I know. But his mother is so unhappy and lost because every day is a fight to put food on the table and cloths on his back. Simple things like having heating and hot water mean that often they go without thing we take for as given. She had never taken her son to see the sea or out to the movies. He has no toys but from Oxfam or things people have given her second hand. Most if not all of his cloths are hand me downs and his best cloths are his school uniform that is often two sizes to small for him.

She gets some help from the government but it mostly now goes on food and paying back the loan sharks that she had to borrow money off last year to pay the bills and the back council tax that she owed, it was that or be kicked out of their home. Once a week a man knocks on her door and takes most of the money she has to pay the sharks. She has tried to get a job but having left school at 15 she has no exams and the jobs she can get means that she would be working when she needs to be home looking after her son. 

The government of this great country of our doesn't see the little people any more, it has bigger things to think about. The sub-prime index, banks going bust, fuel prices that could cost them the next election, and even a war on the other side of the world where fathers, sons, mothers and daughters are being killed every day because one mad president blames a religion for some crazy peoples actions seven years ago. 

So winter is coming and how will she heat their home or pay the bills, put food on the table and a smile on her sons face. 

'POVERTY' comes in many forms and affects many people all over the world, it's sometimes harder for people to see what's not on the television and right in front of them every day.

Bear. X

Make poverty history for everyone all over this world.

  

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