When you think of poverty, what comes to mind?

When you think of poverty, what comes to mind?

The experts of course, first have to come up with a way to define and measure it. How can we calculate whether or not an individual or family is impoverished? Apparently, there is some debate about how this is done. What measures should be used? What should be included in figuring this data out? It’s important for the experts to have a sense of the devastating numbers. For the nonexperts however, I think I can speak for all of us when I say that the exact numbers don’t really matter, because who would want to see anyone come even close to meeting those incredibly low income numbers? Many of us have seen those news stories or have had friends or family members who’s circumstances have changed drastically due to the devastating economic downturn. Maybe some of those people or families wouldn’t fit into the narrow definition of poverty and yet, I think we’d all want to pitch in and help them as well.

This brings me to our first week of videos surrounding the issue of poverty. Did you know that merely not having glasses can keep someone from getting out of poverty? What about simply not having the right interview attire to wear? Or not having access to resource books? Statistics aside, the face of poverty stretches far and wide and it’s been so encouraging over here to discover that there is a range of things that a person can do to help someone else suffering from poverty – however it’s defined.