Comments on: Really, Actually Poorer Than You (and Me)

By: Bartolomeo B

Bartolomeo B — Fri, 05 Dec 2008 14:52:28 +0000

I don’t belive that the level of education depends on prosperity of a state. You now that there are a lot of well educated and intellegent people from India, Russia and other countries where people are poor.

By: Dollface

Dollface — Mon, 10 Nov 2008 03:55:15 +0000

Excellent post. I wrote about poverty and education in America on my blog. I would agree that poverty and lower-quality education are a vicious cycle. The importance of a good education available to everyone cannot be stressed enough.

http://therottenlittlegirls.com/2008/10/15/blog-action-day-poverty-and-education-in-america/

By: Peter Mottola

Peter Mottola — Fri, 24 Oct 2008 15:52:12 +0000

A friend of mine runs a non-profit called Global Playground that builds schools in foreign countries (including Cambodia). If y’all feel the need to go dump money somewhere, this is a worthwhile place to do it:
http://theglobalplayground.org/

And Steph – thanks for the link to “Stuff White People Like.” How have I been on the Internet for so long without knowing about this?

By: brooks

brooks — Fri, 17 Oct 2008 12:50:02 +0000

Poverty can be eliminated only when we take combined efforts!

By: Super Careo

Super Careo — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 21:41:21 +0000

I have a child that I have sponsored through the christian organization World Vision. They use the money from your sponsorship to build schools and clean water wells within the communities so that they can become self sufficient and break the cycle of poverty.

Ncamiso just turned 6 and he lives in Swaziland, which in the very northern tip of Africa.

Giving money every month and knowing that it is going to help this little guy live a happy and healthy life makes me so excited!

By: Adam Luptak

Adam Luptak — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 16:54:25 +0000

I totally agree with your point on the cause-effect cycle of poverty and education.

Also a reason to attack poverty / a lack of education that is pretty hard to sell as bleeding-heart liberalism (in my own humble bleeding-heart liberal opinion) is that places of poverty are also the places that feed extremism… So an investment in easing poverty is a national security strategy, attacking the cause of the problem rather than attacking the symptoms (with ordinance). Extremist madrassas exist in these place not because they are what the population wants, but because a rich outsider came in and built them, and they’re often the only option for education.

(Of course, reminds me of a passage in Three Cups of Tea – while Greg Mortenson recognizes the security importance of providing an alternative to madrassas, it’s pretty low on the list of reasons why he builds schools.)

Also, can I just say that I was a bit disappointed in the VP debate when Sen. Biden said, in response to a question concerning plans that might have to be abandoned, that he thought they might have to slow down development aid. Props to quasi-answering the question – it’s the sort of question that you really don’t want to answer – but I’m disappointed that we’d consider development aid a lower priority. I haven’t written my letter yet to tell the campaign so, but I am certainly planning on it (maybe tonight!)

By: John Hunter

John Hunter — Wed, 15 Oct 2008 15:39:48 +0000

Great post. Poverty will not be eliminated in a day or a year or a decade but progress can and has been made. Two of my favorite tools for helping that progress along are Kiva, Trickle Up and many other great microfinancing organizations help too.