Poverty

My best friend growing up suffered from poverty. Her mom had Multiple Sclerosis and was unable to work. Since her father was not in her life and they did not had any close family, they survived on assistance programs. I know they were eligible for WIC benefits and then later were on disability income. They also used local resources like food pantries and thrift programs (which provided other services like Christmas gifts and reimbursement for summer camps). Even still, they had little food, were always extremely tight on money, and made every effort to get by. They did things like cut laundry sheets in half, planted a huge garden every year, and picked up cans from the side of the road to sell. My friend would mow people's lawns all summer and babysit any time she was available. This economic hardship had a lot of impact on her and her family, which included affects to each domain. There are obvious biosocial effects, including malnutrition, but also, for this family in particular, a tighter maternal bond. They relied on one another more than any materialistic endeavor. Cognitively, my friend learned to cope with 'less' than others. She developed skill-sets and dispositions that I do not have that relate to her growing up in a family that often had inadequate shelter and food, moved houses quite often, and sometimes lived out of their car for short periods of time. Psychosocially, she coped with the influence of stress and a sense of what she describes as "never feeling grounded" which relates to having to move so often because they were short on rent. Poverty has staggering effects on children in my community and others.

In South Africa the effects of poverty seem tragic and surreal. As much as half of the country's population suffers from poverty, and even despite the fact that they have sufficient food resources, many of those in poverty also suffer from food insecurity (Machethe, 2004). Machethe (2004) points to skewed distribution of income while Aliber (2003) implicates the detrimental effects of HIV, AIDS, and other diseases and viruses as main contributors to these statistics. South African News (2006) illustrates the life Khanyi Dlomo, whose family cannot afford for her to attend school, and despite laws against it, has been turned away by schools. South African News describes the slums in Khanyi's hometown as being lined with the mansions of the rich and of another location, Khayelitsha, where nearly everyone lives below the poverty line in shacks or brick structures that do not have running water and has become the epicenter of crime in the area. In this town, the effects of poverty include disease, food insecurity, inadequate safety, and pollution, among others. Though the effects of poverty are prominent and harmful, there exists differences in experiences cross-culturally; the experience of my childhood friend differs greatly from the experience of Khanyi in South Africa.  

Aliber, M. (2003). Chronic poverty in South Africa: Incidence, causes and policies. World Development, 31(3), 473-490. Retrieved from http://www.researchgate.net

Machethe, C. L. (2004, October). Agriculture and poverty in South Africa: Can agriculture reduce poverty. In Paper presented at the Overcoming Underdevelopment Conference held in Pretoria (Vol. 28, p. 29). Retrieved from http://www.psu.edu

South African News (2006, July 2). Poverty in the land of affluence. The Southern Times. Retrieved from http://southernafrican.news/2006/07/02/poverty-in-the-land-of-affluence/