Wednesday, March 31, 2010

Poverty

1. Who is the World Bank?
World bank is a bank made of many other banks. It is linked to UN, is assisting countries to develop, and is trying to end Poverty

2. Why is it important to collect data from 73 countries?
World bank researched people in 73 countries to know how many people are under poverty line. This was imporant, because by doing this, the world bank could get many different perspectives of many people, living in different enviroments with different prices of things. Also, this could show disparity of wealth.

3. What is poverty?
Poverty is having unsatisfied basic needs.

4. What is the difference between poverty ad extreme poverty?
Extreme poverty could cause many deaths and could make people powerless.

5. What is a poverty trap?
Poverty is three generations in poverty

6. How does the World Bank define poverty?
The world bank defines poverty ans not having enough income to meet the most basic human needs (under $1.25)

7. How many people live under the poverty line in the world?
1.4 billion people are under poverty line.

8. How are the numbers showing improvement in the situation over the last twenty years?
Because the poverty line got higher, but less people are under it.

9. Can you suggest some things / organizations that could be helping the situation and explain why there is an improvement?
In order to solve this, I believe that higher taxes should be put on the rich and the poor should receive that money.

10. Write a short snapshot of a time when you witnessed poverty. Where, when, why? How did it make you feel? Be as descriptive as possible.
I've seen a sight of poverty 2 years ago in Malaysia. There was an old, armless man,sitting and begging for money.

Thursday, March 25, 2010

Global issues


Global Issues are things happening around the world that are making people suffer. Some of these Issues are stopping people from getting their most basic needs; food, water, shelter and clothing. Some of them are stopping them from using their right to live. Some of them are threatening every lives of human on earth. We, human beings, create most of these problems. We, human beings, are able to fix these problems. But our greed and short-term thinking is not allowing it. We, human beings, must get through our barrier of greed and proceed to the end of all global issues. For others sake and for our sake, we must help whoever was in a crisis, help people out of the downward spiral, end poverty, end AIDS, End HIV, help the ill, stop pollution, save the environment and reduce everything we use. We mustn’t forget that nowhere is safe and any thing could happen to us. We mustn’t forget that we, ours selves could fall in to the downward spiral. We mustn’t forget that we could get ill. We as people should help the poor get secure source of money, clean water, and medical treatment when they are ill. We will have to live ethically and stop sucking money out of the poor, stop throwing away trash, and stop using too much resources.

In this class, we are learning about how to take care of others. we are becoming more aware and more responsible about our behavior and the environment. The environment is not just plants and animals, but the social environment as well. And even the economy. Global issues may be huge, but we are leaning to start small.

Tuesday, March 23, 2010

What it means to live in Poverty


What does it mean to live in Poverty? Many people on the earth knows, since 1/4 of people around the world are in extreme poverty at this moment.

People in extreme poverty are starving while we, the people rich enough to buy computers, take more than enough and throw away anything left. They sell their own children in to torture for their food and survival, knowing that the buyer will take and sell the child's organ, cut his arm off, and make him beg for money without giving him anything to eat. People in extreme poverty don't have a source of clean water. They will have to drink knowing the sickness it could bring, while some of us wast clean water by refusing to turn off water while brushing their teeth. People in extreme poverty are not able to afford medical care. If they get sick from their dirty water or thier labor, they will have no choice but to die in agonising pain. People in extreme poverty don't have accese to education. They live wanting to know and get out of all disadvantages that come from ignorance, while some of us sleep in and talk in class, making nothing out of the oppertunity others are wishing for. People in extreme poverty have no rights or voice. If they get involved in crime as a victim, they will not have money to get a lawyer and loose the trial. No one will speak out for them, for there is nothing that could come from poor people.

1/4 of people around the world are in extreme poverty, felling pain. If we, the people who can and have the right to live, let go of our greed and selfishness, we could end poverty. So why don't we?

Monday, March 22, 2010

3rd world farmer


3rd World Farmer- about game and strategies
3rd world farmer is a realistic game showing the hardship of poor farmers in 3rd world. You will start with $50 and plant seeds on your land. You have choice of corn, wheat, cotton, and peanuts. If you use your money and do whot you want to do, you will be able to go to next year. Some events will take place. You could have splendis havest, some harvests might fail, one of your family member could fall ill, a corrupt official could came and rip you off, an angry mop may rise and take everything you have, a well that you spent $120 on might be gone, refugees could come and take all your livestocks, a civil war could break out and break down some of your properties, a fire could burn down all your barns and sheds, and so on.

If you have a brain and at least a single eyeball, you whould have realised that only two of these many events are posetive. To live through these life treatening events, there are some parts of the game that you must know. First is information about importence in medical treatment. To get your family healthy, you need to pay for your medicin. Some people might think this an unneccecary spending, but it is not, for how much you earn in a year has direct relationship with your family's health. If people are unhealthy, their work capacity goes down. This, in this game, makes your income lower.

The second thing you must know is that the balance and stableness is the most importent. If you invest all money on a single crop and it fails, you will die. If you don't have an insurence of a well and a dry season comes to visit, death will visit you too, soon enough. If you invest all your money on elephants and elephant poachers comes to visit, you will loose everything.

The third thing you must realise is that if you take offers from people, it could lead to great disadvantage. If you take the offer of the drug plantation of millitary camp, a gerilla force will come make a visit. If you sell your children, your work capacity will fall and you won't be able to make the best out of the money you got by sacrifising your shild. If you let people use some of your land to keep chemical wast, your family will get sick and you will need to pour more money than you got payed to make your family healthy.


In this game, the beginning is the most importent. If you do something wrong or if some horrible event takes place, you will be just about dead. To survive, you will need to plant wheat and corn, the same amount each that you could afford . This is nessecary, because sometimes, a single type of crops fail. Since these two have the lowest possebilyty to do so, you will probably be fine. Also, If one fail, the other won't. After that you will have to keep planting corn and wheat together. If you earn more than $200, you must buy a well, since the most deadlyest event that could happen in the beggining is the dry season. If you don't have a well, you won't get any income at all from crops. But if you do have a well, your crops will earn you enough money to live. After making a well, buy some tools, such as a Scythe of a plow to make your income increase. Earn money and support a trustworthy representative, who will block gerilla and corrupt officials from taking your property. Then, buy the crop insurence and plan all of your fields with peanuts. Although peanuts have high chance of failing, it is sold at a high price and will bring you wealth, especially with the crop insuence, wich will let the worries of crop failure and dry seaon dissapear. If you do these things, you will earn alot of money soon. If you have enough money, sell any tools you have, and buy four harvesters, with will increase your yeild per crop increase by alot. After that, buy 6 barns (leave your well) and buy 8 elephants. If you do this, you will earn thousends, even tens of thousends every year. After this, buy all things under the light bulb section, and win the game!

I think the theme of this is game is to keep your self out of the downward spiral, by thinking creativly about what an event could lead to. If you don't and take offers, you will loose money. If you don't give medicin to your family without thinking about the consequences, you will loose. If you are able to think about concequences of yoour actions, you will be able to survive the third world farming.

Tuesday, March 2, 2010

What is global issues?

Global issues are problems around the world, mostly coming from people who thinks in short term instead of long term. They are also from global relationship, such as European countries invading weaker countries, and sucking everything out of them. They are problems that could be solved with empathy and long term thinking. We should care about these issues, because some of these could affect us, and take our lives.