Hope in Poverty

Poverty is the state of being extremely poor and also being inferior in quality or insufficient in amount.  The causes of poverty include poor people's lack of resources, an extremely unequal income distribution in the world and within specific countries, conflict, and hunger itself.

 As of 2008 (2005 statistics), the World Bank has estimated that there were an estimated 1,345 million poor people in developing countries who live on $1.25 a day or less.

Kibera Slums in Kenya

Here in Kenya, 58% of Kenyans lives on less than 2 dollars per day. According to the World Fact Book, Kenya has a 40% unemployment rate. The Rural Poverty Portal states that Kenya’s rural poor people include small farmers, herders, farm laborers, unskilled and semi-skilled workers, households headed by women, people with disabilities, and AIDS orphans.

Part of our work here in Afri-Lift is working with disadvantaged young people and their families in the society. We have programs such as Touch a Family (TAF) that sees to it that families that cannot fend for themselves are well taken care of. In such cases we provide an emergency parcel of food that will hopefully last the family for a month. The parcel includes packets of flour, cooking oil, soap, tea leaves, rice, sugar and beans. 

An example that comes to my mind as I write this article is a family that we once visited late last month, the Aoko’s. The family has been through a lot in the past couple years including the death of the father and leaving behind four children and a mother has no educational background has been left behind to survive. 

Life has not been easy for the Aoko’s. As the mother looks for casual jobs during the day the children go to school hungry sometimes without any meal. The only meal they get is what is provided in school. Sometimes due to the pressure the mother has resulted taking traditional illicit brew maybe to ease the disappointment of life this sometimes leads to the neglect of the children.

The family has also been behind in rent by three months in their mud thatched house in the slums of Kibera. One of the children, Kennedy, has resulted to go without food so as to save enough money for rent. The same child who has been top of his class has started dwindling away in his performance in school.

Typical house in Kibera

Is there really hope in poverty?

Hope is the feeling of expectation and a desire for something to happen.  New research suggests hope may be just as vital to beating poverty as capital, credit, skills or food.

 In life we all have different expectations even the Aoko’s family. The mother hopes to someday to get a job that will provide enough to feed the family and pay rent. Kennedy’s hope is to someday become a lawyer. Hope is sometimes what keeps them moving on with the belief that the next day things will get better.

Mother Teresa constantly emphasised on giving people hope especially those trapped in poverty. “We want to create hope for the person ... we must give hope, always hope,” she once said.

We all need hope in our lives despite of the circumstances around us. When we have given all we can to help those around remember the best the best thing you can give out is hope