Poverty (also called penury) is deprivation of those things that determine the quality of life, including food, clothing, shelter and safe drinking water, but also "intangibles" such as the opportunity to learn and to enjoy the respect of fellow citizens.

Causes of Poverty

Environmental Factors

• Erosion. Intensive farming often leads to a vicious cycle of exhaustion of soil fertility and decline of agricultural yields and thence increased poverty.
• Deforestation as exemplified by the widespread rural poverty in China that began in the early 20th century and is attributed to non-sustainable tree harvesting.
• Geographic factors, for example access to fertile land, fresh water, minerals, energy, and other natural resources. Presence or absence of natural features helping or limiting communication, such as mountains, deserts, navigable rivers, or coastline.
• Drought and water crisis.

Economics

• Unemployment.
• Capital flight by which the wealthy in a society shift their assets to off-shore tax havens deprives nations of revenue needed to break the vicious cycle of poverty.
• Communists see the institution of property rights itself as a cause of poverty.
• Unequal distribution of land. Land reform is one solution.

Health Care

• Poor access to affordable health care makes individuals less resilient to economic hardship and more vulnerable to poverty.
• Inadequate nutrition in childhood, itself an effect of poverty, undermines the ability of individuals to develop their full human capabilities and thus makes them more vulnerable to poverty.
• Disease, specifically diseases of poverty: AIDS, malaria, and tuberculosis and others overwhelmingly afflict developing nations, which perpetuate poverty by diverting individual, community, and national health and economic resources from investment and productivity.
• Similarly substance abuse, including for example alcoholism and drug abuse when not properly treated undermines resilience and can consign people to vicious poverty cycles.

Governance

• Lacking democracy in poor countries.
• Weak rule of law can discourage investment and thus perpetuate poverty.
• Failure by governments to provide essential infrastructure worsens poverty.
• Poor access to affordable education traps individuals and countries in cycles of poverty.

Demographics and Social Factors

• Overpopulation and lack of access to birth control methods. Note that population growth slows or even become negative as poverty is reduced due to the demographic transition.
• Crime, both white-collar crime and blue-collar crime, including violent gangs and drug cartels.
• Individual beliefs, actions and choices.
• Brain drain

source: wikipedia.org

FACTS ABOUT POVERTY

1. 30,000 children under the age of five die each day due to hunger and treatable illness. That’s 11 million children each year.
   
2. One in twelve children will die before they reach their fifth birthday.
   
3. One billion children suffer from one or more of the following multiple deprivations: nutrition, water, sanitation, health, shelter, education, and information.
   
4. Nearly one billion people entered the 21st century unable to read a book or sign their name.
   1.1 billion people in developing countries have inadequate access to clean water.
   
5. The gross domestic product of the poorest 48 nations is less than the wealth of the world's three richest people.
   
6. More than 800 million people go hungry every day.
   
7. One in five children in the developing world does not have access to safe water, and one in seven has no access whatsoever to essential health services.
   
8. Every year eleven million children die -- most under the age of five -- and more than six million from completely preventable causes like malaria, diarrhea and pneumonia.
   
9. Of these children, more than one in three children does not have adequate shelter.
10. Over 16% of children in developing world 10 under the age of five lack adequate nutrition.
    
11. 153 million children under 5 in the developing world are underweight.
12. The average distance girls and women in developing countries walk each day to fetch water is 3.6 miles

Source: Poverty facts and Stats

"FACE OF POVERTY"

PERSONALIZED MOVIE FOR EVERYBODY :)

When Lightning Strikes...

Recently, Davao just experienced FLASH FLOODS with some people stranded at different places. It was MILLIONS of years when HUMANITY first experienced the very first tragedy in their whole existence. Now, the GREAT FLOOD that was encountered bythe people of Noah's time seems cascading to the 21st Century of ours.The classes were announced suspended by the City Mayor today (June 16, 2008) due to "unceasing strong torrents of rain". We were in the state of shock when early in the morning, all we can see is WATER.. WATER and WATER. All the GARBAGE BINS were thrown out into the sea-like flood. We can still remember when we lastwalked on this water-covered pavement. There were "animal feces" which we're about to step on, people who spits everywhere, the "urine of rats" and the "drainage canal" from the Angel Funeral Homes. When we saw people venturing through that polluted water, those things slowly crept into our minds. YUCK!!! But our hearts gradually sank knowing that beyond all this... POVERTY is the bottomline. Maybe they have no money for the fare of the tricycle that's why they walked along not thinking the great consequences they will face in the FUTURE especially if their immune system is low...

Undesirable :(

"Malipayong Pag-abot sa Dabaw". -- The greeting of Davao natives to tourists or foreigners who come here for living or just simply visit the tourist spots that we are famous for. In fact, Davao's really a heaven for its inhabitants. A typhoon-free area, food supply's abundant, many affordable residential spaces, modes of transportation, and many places to visit ranging from malls to beach resorts away from the noisy city life.

Despite all those unquestionable occurrences, it's undeniable that Davao City also has its undesirable circumstances and one of those is POVERTY. In this blog, you are going to see how other residents of Davao live with their unfortunate life. We are also going to feature further problems in Davao City.