Childhood poverty affects many children and families on a
day to day basis. After numerous attempts to contact child care professionals
in other countries without any replies I chose to listen to some podcast. I had
a very difficult time finding a podcast concerning poverty in other countries
however I did find a podcast on the website The Whole Child, the name of this
Podcast was titled “The New Poverty:
Dealing with Economic Change”.
The podcast participants included professional Deborah
Wortham, Superintendent of the School District City of York, Pa, Felicia
Dehaney, President and CEO of the Nation Black Child Development Institute,
Kathleen Budge, Coordinator of the Leadership Development Program and William
Parrett, Director of the Center for School Improvement and Policy Studies.
Poverty is complex and there are different circumstances to
why children and families are in poverty, according to the Podcast members
poverty can be, situational, generational, absolute, relative, urban and
rural. Situational poverty is caused by
sudden changes due to unforeseen circumstances such as the loss of a job. Generational poverty is passed down from one
generation to the next, may consider this a mindset. Absolute poverty is the lack of basic needs
for survival including food, medical care, safe drinking water shelter and
education. Relative poverty comes from
the society one lives in and may differ from country to country. Urban and
rural poverty are communities with reduced circumstances.
These professionals discuss ways that professionals can
address poverty issues by extending boundaries, understanding your cultural
biases, reducing situations and providing safe havens where children can be
successful. If children’s needs are
placed at the top of our priority list they believe that we as professionals
can make drastic changes and there will be dramatic progress in the lives of
our children.
After visiting the website of the Childhood Research and
Policy Centre’s page the country that I chose to share information about is
China.
Poverty is an almost exclusively rural occurrence, with 99%
of China’s poor hailing from rural China, though national statistics count
migrant workers in cities among the rural, not urban poor. Levels of poverty are higher and more severe
in China’s western regions, but nearly half of the poor are in other parts of
the country. People living in remote, mountainous areas are two to three times
more likely to be poor than those who live in more central areas, and the
incidence of poverty among ethnic minorities is two to three times higher than
among the Han Chinese. Still, about half of the poor in China are neither
living in remote areas nor members of an ethnic minority. overall, poverty rates for male and female
adults and the elderly population is very close – between 12% and 13%. But
poverty rates are higher among children under 16 years old: 16% of boys and 17%
of girls are poor. Girls are also more at risk than boys of becoming poor.
Reference
Childhood Poverty Research and Policy Centre’s page (http://www.childhoodpoverty.org/)
Hi, Latarsha
ReplyDeleteI'm sorry that you're having trouble making an international connection. I finally got a reply from someone in Australia, but now her email is not working. It sounds like you found some very interesting resources through the alternative assignment. It sounds like the podcast was very informative. It is interesting to compare how poverty in the United States takes place in various settings - both rural and urban - while poverty in China is primarily rural. It would be interesting to find more information about the high occurrence of poverty in rural China. Thank you for sharing this information.
I can only begin to imagine the difficulties that families must go through when dealing with poverty; having to work day in and day out to try to provide for one's children and yet many children are forced to take on work themselves. Thank you for sharing the information that you found.
ReplyDeleteI too have made several attempts to contact someone from another country. I am not giving up though! I loved your post and how you discussed the different types of poverty. Poverty can occur in many forms and sometimes come out of the blue like losing a job. The sad thing is that the children are affected the most by these situations.
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