Blog Action Day – What is poverty?

It has been difficult to decide which videos from the gallery to post for Blog Action Day today. Typing ‘poverty’ into the search box brings up a range of clips, each of which is relevant to the subject in its own way. Historical images of poverty, in the Victorian and Tudor eras, for example, can be found in the primary history units. It is also brought up in the dance recreation of the Cinderella story in one of the new primary literacy units. There are plenty of geography clips showing shanty towns and slum districts in countries such as Brazil, India and Mexico, and news reports from Africa showing poverty and hardship in a range of places, including amongst the Masai tribes of Tanzania, and in Darfur and Zimbabwe. Poverty in urban areas of the UK is also illustrated in a number of clips showing run-down housing estates and shopping precincts, and there are examples from rural locations too. Whatever poverty might be, it has certainly been around for a while and continues to exist in all areas of the globe today.

Most definitions of poverty focus on economic factors, and lack of material possessions and necessities for daily living (such as food, shelter, clothing, or safe drinking water). Others go further and include social aspects that affect the way that  people are able to live, such as access to information, education, health care, or political power. The following broad definition from the World Bank includes both types of factors, and many of the points are exemplified in the first clip, a news report following Bob Geldof’s return to Ethiopia twenty years after Live Aid:

‘Poverty is hunger. Poverty is lack of shelter. Poverty is being sick and not being able to see a doctor. Poverty is not having access to school and not knowing how to read. Poverty is not having a job, is fear for the future, living one day at a time. Poverty is losing a child to illness brought about by unclean water. Poverty is powerlessness, lack of representation and freedom.’

Title of clip	Bob Geldof Revisits Africa
Curriculum location	Primary Module A  >  History  >  Key stage 2  >  Unit 20: What can we learn about recent history from studying the life of a famous person?  >  Section 4: What was John Lennon known for after the Beatles? (What was Princess Diana known for?)  >  Learning Objective: to find out about aspects of political awareness and protest in the 1970s (to find out about aspects of political awareness and aids and landmine issues)
Description	News report on Bob Geldof’s visit to Ethiopia twenty years after Live Aid: he complains about excuses that hamper the project and for people to get on with it, Bob meets with two orphan boys living alone in the city slums, a result of the droughts felt by the region, two orphan sisters alone are scared of thieves and attackers, Bob meets with the Ethiopian Prime Minister and gives a scathing attack on European governments for not providing further food stocks.
Duration	1 minute 44 seconds

 

Please note that this is an example clip provided through our YouTube channel and does not reflect the actual quality of clips in the gallery

The second clip that I’m posting is archive footage composed of interviews with people about how their lives have changed since the Second World War. The gentleman in the final interview of the clip discusses how he grew up with a certain amount of poverty, which his parents thought he would be able to escape by receiving a decent education and learning a trade. However, he goes on to say that although he lives in a nice house and is surrounded by material things, he is ultimately worse off as the things that he has are all artificial.

Does having material wealth and adequate resources to live comfortable lives, and even access to social services and freedoms, necessarily mean that we are not ‘poor’ in other ways? This is an interesting article about a group of native American Indians who became wealthy through opening a casino resort, but are now experiencing a kind of ‘poverty of the soul’.

Title of clip	Changes in British Life – Eyewitnesses
Curriculum location	Primary Module A  >  History  >  Key stage 2  >  Unit 13: How has life in Britain changed since 1948?  >  Section 8: THE ENQUIRY STAGE 5: What are the changes in work, home life, popular culture, population and technology in Britain since 1948? When did these changes happen?
Description	British people giving their opinions on how life has changed for better and worse over the last 60 years: a elderly woman speaks about the benefit of the Welfare State and in particular the Health Service, an elderly gentleman speaks on how the Conservatives tried to abolish the NHS and another gentleman speaks of growing up in poverty, his parents said he would have a better life than them with an education and learning a trade but he does not agree, he describes that a better life was had before, progress is not everything.
Duration	2 minutes 44 seconds

 

Please note that this is an example clip provided through our YouTube channel and does not reflect the actual quality of clips in the gallery