The American culture is an intriguing thing. We spend our time being fascinated by celebrity's marriages, fuss over a sports star hurting his ankle or feel self-pity over things that are so trivial.
But how often do we think about the children in this world who have no homes, no food or no family? We see people here begging for money on the streets and feel sorry for them. I went to India and saw little kids running around without any clothes and living, literally, in cardboard shacks. And the funny thing about them is that they don't beg for anything. There are millions of children all around the globe that don't even know who their parents are. There are little girls that are sold into prostitution for what we would consider pennies. Because these people have no resources they die of diseases and illnesses that were easily preventable or treatable. Statistics have shown that nearly 30,000 children die every day because of hunger, illness and poverty; this is equivalent to one death every three seconds.
Most of us think of poverty as not having material goods or money available. There is much more to poverty than we realize. A lot of us also tend to have the attitude that these people are poor because they're too lazy to work. Poverty is not caused by laziness. There are several factors that cause this condition including but not limited to:
Overpopulation
This is usually the first thing that comes to mind. We say to each other that people should use birth control and not have so many children. What we don't know is that birth control methods are not always readily available in developing countries.
Geographic Location
There isn't always access to fresh water, fertile land or other natural resources because of the geographic location of some countries. This makes it difficult to grow and harvest food and for developing nations to become self-sufficient.
Disease
Many underdeveloped countries are afflicted with diseases like AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis. A lot of this is due to the fact that these nations are in tropical areas where parasites like to grow. The climates in these areas are ideal for parasites to live in and increase in number.
My trip to India made me realize how lucky we are to have the luxuries that we do. Having hot water to bathe with or toilets that flush are things that people in third world countries only dream about. My experiences there have humbled me in ways that I can't begin to describe.
