People in Poverty Need Assistance Merging Into Society: Both Children as Well as Adults

I used to drive into Jo'burg, South Africa, every week day to do my job in an office environment. Some days I drove in early, before the city centre began the bustling day, and I would see street children lying huddled on the sidewalks, with sleeping bags or threadbare blankets or sheets of plastic covering them. I surmise some were quite young, perhaps eight years old, and others already into their late teens. If I caught a bus during the day, there they were too, sitting or milling about in the general area, as they slept on top of the open bus shelters (though I heard that the shelters were modified later and people could no longer lie down in them). Raggedy children, no socks, tekkies (sneakers) stretched and worn, scabs and cuts on their legs and arms, dirty from lack of washing, with dreary eyes, sometimes carrying bottles of glue to sniff in groups, to keep the cold and the hopelessness and dead feelings away. I saw these children often and yet I continued on to work or I went home to my bed at night, pushing thoughts of them out of my mind. These children were part of the landscape.

What is the future for most of these children? I suspect many will grow into adults who have a lack of skills and purpose and who drift through life, trying to find a job, but being largely unsuccessful. Consider that these same children might become doctors or lawyers or humanitarian solutionaries if they were given a different start in life. That's right, the same people! What could the future of society look like if we cared for children like these? A whole lot brighter!

Thankfully I know that a number of organisations do look after children like these, but there is never enough money for a real home and a real family life for them. I might have donated some money myself occasionally in the past, though I don't recall doing so.

Now take the example of a street child who is 15 years old. He or she is eligible for help from an organisation like this, and may get quite a bit of sympathy to turn his or her life around. Take the same child 3 years later, at the age of 18. Will the sympathy still be there? I suspect children in poverty get sympathy, but hopeless adults with no future do not. Yet these adults were children who grew up without an education, without love, without learning key skills. The lack of skills is as crippling as if they were physical challenges. I wrote the blog article, the Unemployment Dilemma, which speaks to this concept.

I fully believe in supporting organisations that help people in poverty, especially into knowledge and education and skills, as they do a job that it would be difficult for us to do personally. I ask people to donate to charities when they can, however small the amount might seem--no amount is ever too small, as, imagine, if everyone began donating loose change, the sum would soon grow! Imagine the knock on effect to society if we were to assist all our poor onto their feet, to become a part of the economic community? I see how different the world could be.

I realise I have made some assumptions in writing this piece, and I leave these thoughts with you to make up your own mind about this matter.

Link to related blog article: Tipping Point: What's Beneath the Iceberg?