Education in the Face of Poverty

My first trip to Nicaragua in two words, eye opening.  When I was 14 years old I was blessed with the opportunity to travel to Nicaragua from the Vail Valley,  going from my small town with very little poverty to some of the most severe poverty I have ever imagined.  In staying a part of CGA I traveled on three more trips that have opened my eyes to a whole other side of life across the ocean. From the home visits to driving around every country and seeing little things, piles of trash on the roads, little girls walking with gallons of water on their head because there was no other way to get water. All of the countries that Children’s Global Alliance travels to are severely stricken by poverty. Every time I travel I try to think how can this just happen, how does the cycle of poverty begin in a family, and why is it so difficult to get out of that cycle.

            In every place that I have traveled to the families express the deep need for their children  to get an education.  In Tanzania one home visit that stuck with me the most regarding poverty was Esther’s. Her mom works long hours at L.O.A.M.O school just so Esther can get the best education possible because her mother never had that chance. Almost every family that we talked to said that they want their child or children to get an education so that they can have a better life than their parents had. To me that is heartbreaking because I have grown up with parents that I constantly look up to and they know that. To hear parents say that they don’t feel that sense of pride about their lives and they don’t want their kids to end up where they are is tragic. This is why I think education and understanding is the key to ending poverty.  That is why there is always teaching involved in every place CGA travels to.  Without a good education, almost 99% of these kids will not get out of the cycle of poverty. For most kids that come from places like the United States, going to school is the norm. However, in places like Tanzania and Morocco kids have to drop out to help provide for their families. Education is such an important factor in ending poverty because without it they don’t learn basic skills they need throughout life. Education is so much more than learning math or how to write it’s about learning how to commit to a task, it’s about learning how to be motivated, and even work as a team.

            When most people think of poverty they just think about how sad it is and how they just want to give money and such and while that is great. Ending poverty will only happen if action is taken. To me this is why CGA is such an amazing program because we aren’t just sitting around in our safe little town researching, instead we are immersing ourselves in their lives and learning about the degree of poverty that people are living in and taking that experience back home to learn from it. Ever since I have become involved with CGA I constantly think how can we do more? How can we impact more lives? Some people will tell you it’s impossible to end poverty and that we are fighting a fight we are never going to win. However, I think doing something as little as doing a supply drive or going on service trips and coming home and telling everyone about it and how they can take action will slowly diminish poverty in places. I can contribute to this solution of education by educating my fellow peers about it and how they can take action and impact other people’s lives.

            Tanzania itself has gone through many ups and downs economically due to wars, oil crisis, and sharp drops in the previously-high coffee prices. Ever since the 1970’s The World bank became more and more concerned about rapid inflation, balance-of-payments problems, and the domestic price system. During this time, the government was unable to provide basic needs for their citizens to get by. However, in 1996 Tanzania created a vision to guide its development into the twenty-first century, replacing its previous strategy, the Arusha Declaration. This vision hoped to improve conditions in Tanzania, to become a middle-income country free from poverty. The first driving force in this movement to come out of poverty are a developmental mindset imbued with confidence, commitment and empowering cultural values. The second is to surround their citizens with a mindset of competitiveness, which includes more education in the sciences and better infrastructural development. The last one is to better the governance of the country and rule of law. I think that all of this sounds good to the people there, but I am sure they have heard and seen this type of thing put in place multiple times, and never seen anything come out of it. I think something that could better this strategy to overcome poverty is to send higher up government officials into local town where poverty hits them the hardest and to see what they really need.

            The cycle of poverty in many countries is something most families think they are never going to come out of. Traveling to these countries has taught me that poverty is so much more complex to then most of us think it to be. Poverty is when an A plus student has to sit under an oil lamp to do her homework. Poverty is when children no more than ten have to walk miles to get water for their families. Poverty is when elementary school children have to dropout to help contribute to their families. My goal in these service trips is to make this my life mission to help families like Esther’s feel that they are not limited in their dreams just because their family was stuck in the cycle of poverty. My hope is to ask a kid from Morocco or Tanzania what they want to be when they are older and see them accomplish their dream.