I've recently encountered a post on Facebook which had the caption.
"Give 500 dollars to a rich man, and he'll turn that into 1000 in a week, give 500 dollars to a poor person, and those 500 dollars will be gone in a week."
Or it might have been structured differently but the message is still the same.
While reading the comments on the post, I felt bad for all the unfortunate people who suffer from poverty because not only are they having a hard time financially, they are also being looked down upon by people who have better lives.
A lot of people resonated with the message and even shared it in their timelines. I was infuriated.
Seriously?
Is this how dense we are?
Is this how we view others who have worse lives than ours?
I agree that a lot of poor people make irrational decisions regarding money, but that's only because of the lack of financial education.
People like you and I have the privilege of going to school, study at a university, and have money to rent boarding houses and pay for fees and our tuition. But poor people don't have that kind of luxury.
They generate an income that covers their daily consumption, such as food, water, and essential utilities. This means that they don't have enough saved up money to go to school, study, and eventually work jobs in the city.
Adding to this, they don't generate that much money to purchase groceries in bulk. Everyone knows that buying in bulk lessens our costs, and this is true. Poor people don't have the money to buy in bulk, which means when they buy something, they tend to buy in small quantities, which will cost a lot more money in the long run.
Come to think of it, even when we go to school, we are never really taught how the real world works. Most of the time they just shove unnecessary and trivial information in our brains and expect us to memorize it all during exams to boost the school's reputation.
They don't teach us about investing, how the stock market works, what taxes are, or even how to get a valid ID.
Seeing that you're reading this post, people like you and I have the privilege of having internet. Poor people do not have the means to have this.
Through the internet, I now know what investing is and how to generate even more income using technology. Poor people don't even have stable access to the internet; how can we expect them to be technologically proficient and use them to their benefit?
This leads to poor people being left out to do jobs that many people have moved on from.
Think about it, do you really think that poor people want to stay poor? No, of course not. But they have trouble in almost everything they do. There are nearly no high-paying jobs available for them, and they don't have the resources to start a business.
A straightforward solution to this behemoth of a problem is through education, free education. If we really care for our fellow citizens who are struggling, we must help spread the importance of education.
If more people go to school, there will be fewer unemployed people, fewer teenage pregnancies, fewer beggars in the streets, fewer people suffering from poverty.
I also hope that our educational system will improve and adapt to our ever-changing world. We're not living in the past anymore; we must take advantage of our technological advancements as much as possible.
We could do this by using the internet to explore other sources of information and integrate computers and laptops in our learning environment because they will be the tools we will use in the future.
A new and improved educational system should also help us overcome real-world obstacles. It should teach students how to open bank accounts, how to minimize spending, how to maximize investments and smart purchases for the future.
Through this, we will not only produce industrially-competitive workers but also socially aware citizens.
So, if you ever encounter people who think that poverty-stricken citizens are just lazy, educate them and inform them that not everyone has the same access to tools as middle-class or wealthy people have.
Disclaimer: This blog is mine and any similarities with other blogs do not have my permission to take out any information from my article.
