‘I have a dream..’ by Meghana Mandala
admin | April 15, 2010 | Religious Studies, Year 7
I have a dream that this world will one day be a world where every person has all his basic needs without a single problem. A world where every person has food, clean water, some money, some simple clothing, a home. I am talking about a world without poverty.
The word poverty means the condition of not having basic human needs such as clean water, nutrition, basic health care, a good education, clothing and shelter. I think that every human being should have these things in their life to help them survive each day. The people who have all of these things and more don’t understand the value of these things. They don’t realise how lucky they are to have all of these things.
Some people take full advantage of the things that they have, these are the people who know how lucky they are to have these things. But some people just use their things just once and then throw it aside, these people don’t know how lucky they are to have such things as a laptop or an ipod.
If we use a toy as an example for this situtation then it will be easier. A small little boy in a rich country, such as America, has just been given a brand new toy to play with. He plays with it all day but the next day he throws it to the side and plays with a different toy. He gets new toys maybe every month and changes his mind every month not knowing the value of them and all his life he has been growing up like this. His parents have taught him lots of things but they haven’t taught him how to appreciate his things.
But on the other side of the world there is a small little boy sititng in the slums of a poor country such as Bangladesh, has been given a new toy as 1 year old and has kept his whole life because he knew how hard his parent worked to get him just that one toy. His parents can’t teach him anything because they both are uneducated but the boy on his own, learns how to appreciate the things that he is given.
Some of us throw tantrums and arguments and we sulk and shut doors in faces when we don’t get what we want. We talk about how cool the latest phone is but the people in the slums just DREAM about having a phone.
There are lots of peopl who just dream about living luxury lives like ours. There are literally whole cities full of poor or disabled people just sitting in silence waiting for time to come. Waiting for their time to have their dreams fulfilled. But three fourths are waiting in silence fortheir time to die. Did you know that 1.8 peopledie every second, 108 people every minute and 6,461 every hour ? they are all dying because we can’t care enough to give to the charities which are trying to help them. Why can’t we help to give them their basic need ? why can’t we help give the children of the slum a decent education instead of making them work on the streets, to help buy medicines for their sick grandparents or to help feed their family.
There are countries such as India, Indonesia, Iran, Jamaica which are have about half the population living in the slums waiting for a brighter forecast in life. Why ca’t we help them to change their forecast, why can’t we be the ones to help them get further in life ?
There are so many charities which are doing their bit to help the less fortunate in the world. They’re even trying to get us to also help them. but why is it we have to be pushed by other people to give the money to charity. If we have a little bit of humanity in us thhen we should walk freely and give the money to charity.
There are so many ways of giving to charity, we don’t always have to drop a few pennies in the plastic box, we can do much more than that. We can do some shopping in the charity shops, you never know what you can find. Instead of throwing away old clothes and toys you can give them to charities which give them to the poor. By doing this you can give them some clothes to wear becuse most people can’t afford clothes, they either get them through charities or they saw odd bits of cloth togther.
By doing things like this you could help so many people in the slums of Africa, India, Bangladesh and even in America, in the U.K and in China.
So the next time you throw a tantrum for something new or you waste some food from you plate, just remember that there is about a third of this worlds’ children that wish that they were in your place. Sitting a warm house, having a proper meal, clean water to drink, a good education, some nice clothes to wear and overall a childhood without having to struggle to live till the next day.
Thank you
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