What Is Poverty

We are a great nation, and another greatness of us is that we love answering, doesn’t matter right or wrong. In the examination hall we get questions which we don’t understand so we write answers which our teachers don’t understand. on the roads if someone asks for directions or address we always answer them not thinking twice if we are sure about that or not, will our answer help them or waste their time. In homes we answer in lies forgetting our responsibilities towards them.
This is a question but If we take a survey in our society, I bet we will get a variety of answers. Most people’s answer will be (Roti, Kapra Aur Makaan) Poverty is lack of food, clothes and shelter. Are we serious? Are we analyzing the question? Are we doing any research? Are we even thinking anything at all? We are repeating the words which we are fed through media and strong political party in our minds like a parrot.
And in Quran advices us that if we don’t know something we should consult to someone who knows, so for our question we should consult a lady who is very poor and had written about her poverty and our teacher has given us that article it is “What is Poverty by Jo Goodwin Parker”.
Lady Jo Goodwin Parker says, poverty is dirty, smelly, tiring, polite, listening. It’s easy to say in our clean clothes coming from our clean houses, “Anybody can be clean.” But Mrs. Parker explains us about housekeeping without money. For breakfast she gives her children grits with no oleo or cornbread without eggs and oleo. She washes dishes in cold water with no soap. Her hands are cracked and red. And when she saved two months for Vaseline baby’s diaper the price went up by two cents and she and her baby suffered on. Poverty is staying up all night on cold nights and watching gnats and flies devour your baby’s tears when he cries in summer. Poverty means insects in your food, in your nose, in your eyes and crawling over you when you sleep. Poverty is asking for help. Poverty is looking into black future. The dream of poor is a dream of time when there is monkey, money for the right kinds of food, for worm medicine, for iron pills, for toothbrushes, for hand cream, for a hammer and nails for a shovel for paint, needles, and thread. A dream of time when you don’t have to tell your story of being poor to everyone and get pity.
We all dream and go through different changes in life. We all should respect everyone and help everyone, and help the poor instead of looking at them with hatred and pity.
That’s all I want to say to my readers, even if one person changes after reading it and looks at poor with the eye of understanding and helping instead of pity I will feel that as my success because full marks in my project will only benefit me but if one person changes it will benefit whole society.

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