Poverty

A few years ago, I lived with someone who did not have enough food to eat. When we first started living in the same house, everybody had enough food to eat. Everybody's assigned shelves were filled to bursting with fruits and vegetables, eggs and cheese, jam and butter. We often ate together, each preparing our own food and offering each other tastes of our culinary specialties.

As the school year progressed, schedules became hectic, and our powers of observation diminished. I did not notice the sparse fridge shelf because I was too focused on the contents of my own. I never ate with anyone else because I was too busy scarfing down cold pasta at the library at 9 at night while writing essays at the last minute. I was too centred on my own world to notice that one of my housemates had not gone grocery shopping for weeks. In fact, I never noticed at all.

Only months later, as we were moving out, did my housemate remark that he could finally eat the his container of pasta on top of the fridge.

"Why now?" I asked.
"I didn't want anyone to know that I didn't have enough food, so I thought that if my pasta container was still full, no one would guess. But now that my student loan has finally come in, I can go shopping."

I stared. I had not known. I had come home each night to declare to whoever was in the living room that I was "starving," but at least I said those words with full knowledge that there was, at the very least, a bowl of cereal in the kitchen with my name on it.

What this experience taught me was to be aware that poverty presents itself in many forms, and people may be reluctant to admit that they are lacking basic needs.

In class, we discussed this issue, particularly the problematic issue of having a class potluck, since some classmates may be unable to contribute. Many of us agreed that it would be easier to create a setting where there is no obligation to bring food and no checking on who brought what, so that it is more difficult to see who might not have brought something.

The reading for this week was the 2010 Report on Child and Family Poverty in Canada: 1989-2010.
Here is the formal citation:
"2010 Report on Child and Family Poverty in Canada: 1989-2010." Campaign 2000. Campaign 2000, 2010. Web. 25 Feb. 2013.

I am concerned by the way some of the information in the report is presented. According to the facts on the first page, "about 1 in 10 children (610,000) and their families lived in poverty (2008 LICO after-tax) even before the recession. That’s more than the population of Victoria and Kelowna combined but does not include 1 in 4 children in First Nations communities growing up in poverty." Why does the report feel the need to discriminate between children in First Nations communities and children in other communities? The report creates a dichotomy between First Nations and non-first nations communities that undercuts its own message, namely that poverty is universal and affects all communities.
If I was teaching a class of older students, I might give them a fact sheet like this to discuss the problematic wording. I really like the idea of integrating a discussion of social problems into other lessons, in order to give seemingly useless lessons a meaning and purpose. For example, we could work as a class to develop a form of the aforementioned report which is more effective at capturing attention and giving inclusive information, then distribute our new report around the school and the community as part of a larger community service project.

I had a look at this website, too:
 http://www.oxfamunwrapped.ca/how-it-works
With an organization like Oxfam, I could work with my class to raise money for a particular gift or item for a community. The class would be able to appreciate the impact of their work and possibly develop a link with the community they helped to increase awareness.