What Can We Do? A Discussion of Poverty and Initiative.

The modern world has a long history of civilisation where humankind has developed to become a very productive species featuring innovative ideas. Today, the 4.5 billion years old Earth is home to many successful people and leading innovators in different categories including: science, law, sport and entrepreneurship.

However, some leading innovators have disregarded an especially important factor of success which is the help of others and giving back to society which left a large proportion of the worlds’ population in extreme poverty.

Some countries have become very developed and technologically advanced while others have fallen behind in the race of growth and are consistently suffering from high percentages of extreme poverty. For example, some countries in Africa are amongst the poorest in the world with about 30% of their population under the poverty line - earning less than US $1.90 daily.

This leads to a worrying fact that there is a severe disparity between Global Southern extreme poverty and Global Northern extreme wealth. This is evident in the shocking fact that 1% of the world’s richest people have twice as much wealth as 6.9 billion people with 50% of the world’s population living on less than $5.50. As a result, we can diagnose that today’s world suffers from the chronic disease of poverty inequality where the poor become poorer and the rich become richer.

Therefore, we must think: If success is measured on how much help and positive impact we have on the world, then can we describe ourselves as successful? It is an important question that we must ask and actively work to fulfill.

We must aim to positively change the world around us by contributing to various charity events. Also, we should educate our community about the importance of helping others and aiming to raise their quality of life.

Moreover, after closely investigating the needs of our community, we may plan to start a charity or an educational project. Of course, we can also carry out a simpler - but still effective - task that suits our capabilities like: planning to send a gift to our neighbour, or willingly helping a student understand a mathematical problem or perhaps utilising our talents in a related community service. We must not fear to provide less because our success is not about how much we give but rather how much effect we can make with what we have.

It is our role to make sure that our hands stretch far beyond our surroundings and help those around us with even as little as a comforting smile. However, this role may be hard at times and may take some of our time and effort. Still, it is essentiel that we commit to these roles,because success is interconnected to our impact on the people around us - especially the poor. Otherwise we do not have the right to call ourselves successful!

By Ahmed Mansoor 12F