By Lisa Newman
The reality that a decrease in poverty is possible is what keeps Steven Smith active in his research.
A forum was held Wednesday night in the Amicar Cabral Memorial Center at the John D. O’Bryant African-American Institute to bring awareness to the issue of poverty.
Smith, development economics professor at George Washington University, spoke about the basic elements of poverty and what measures are being taken to help decrease it.
“The forum is being held to address the concerns of poverty in the nation especially since it disproportionably represents minorities,” said Jordan Clark, Student Government Association representative for the Northeastern Black Student Association (NBSA). “It’s an open discussion of what students think poverty is and some possible solutions to end poverty.”
The forum started with NBSA members asking the audience to think about what qualifies as poverty. Answers from the audience included a lack of running water food and shelter.
The best way to learn about poor people is to talk to them, Smith said. He read an excerpt from his new book, “Ending Global Poverty,” which quoted a person living in extreme poverty in Ethiopia.
“Life has made us ill. We are above the dead but below the living,” he read. These kinds of experiences, Smith said, are the kind that touch people and provoke people to act.
He also explained the theory of “the poverty trap.”
Smith defined the poverty trap as the conditions people in poverty live in, which make it harder to escape it.
These poverty traps include the lack of a promising future for children who are forced to work at a young age, malnutrition that causes a person to be too weak to work and the risks a person who is uninsured must live with and prepare for, making it difficult for them to prosper.
As hopeless as these poverty traps appear, there has been a decrease in poverty during the last decade, Smith said.
Non-Government Organizations (NGOs) are creating new innovative ways to improve in communities where poverty levels are high, Smith said.
NGOs, which are often more flexible than the government, offer specialized knowledge, provide common property, insure greater trust and advocate for those living in poverty, he said.
Smith continued to give examples of efforts of the NGOs, including ways to pump clean water, to provide tutors to children who fall behind in school and to start new and businesses.
The forum closed with a Q’A section and the showing of a short video produced by NBSA.
“It was really eye-opening,” said Nohemie Boyer, a middler pharmacy major and member of NBSA who attended the forum. “I found the part about the NGOs the most interesting, like about teaching girls to imagine their future through art. I didn’t know that kind of thing helped. The only thing I would say was missing was the aspect of the local level. Living in the city and walking past poor people on the street daily really touches me.”
The event was sponsored by NBSA, the Northeastern African Student Organization, the Haitian Student Union and the Caribbean Student Organization.
