Blog Action Day - Poverty is here in front us

This is the second day I took my time to visit www.poverty.com in hunger session and watch the picture of children who passed away due to hunger. Today, in the first time, I read and saw a picture of handsome children with Indonesian name in the middle of hundred names and pictures of children in the same continent. After read in the newspaper several months ago of the same news, I thought that I won’t find ours in the website of poverty but apparently it’s only a dream.

I just remember the news of the tragic 21 people who lost their lives during Ramadhan just because they were afraid that they could not get the US $ 3.30 (at that day). The tragic moment but being ignored by most of the people not because they were intolerant but because the idea of number of poor people is not important information. Especially compare to other nation where the number of death cause by hunger, I may say that Indonesia is way much better.

Not just because Indonesia is not way much better then we have to put aside this issue or refuse to the fact that one of Indonesian children was in the website of poverty, was in the list of people death due to hunger.

Not just because of that one incidence of 21 people then we could say that it was happened once in a blue moon, only during Ramadhan period That it’s only related in specific area whilst in fact we still have to fight with some of poverty issue.

Poverty is not merely related to hunger, there’s another issue like AIDS, Tuberculosis, Shelter, or in other world Poverty is the issue related to quality of life, in health, education and the ability to escape from the poverty cycle.

The main issue in Poverty for me is the ability to escape from the poverty cycle, how we as a nation can create Human Development, especially with today’s situation, as an on going task.

We don’t have to create a masterpiece to do that; we can start from the small thing, like “Food for Work”. Baznas had created that program during Ramadhan, by giving the poor a job before they got food. Instead of giving the food for free, Baznas created the job for them. So the poor people can get their pride as a worker not as a beggar.

I was thinking if we can at least donate let say around IDR 5k or at least IDR 2.5k, the same amount that we use to buy a phone voucher, then we can create the same job all over the city.

Or by donating the same amount, we build a pipe to the infertile land, so the farmer or the people who live there can do something with their land. Another program that created by Baznas.

The question is how come that such a good program doesn’t get the hype ? The answer is maybe because it was created under “religious” brand and since it was under “religious” brand then the donation only to certain people, maybe. I haven’t got the answer yet.

Yesterday, when I was in the middle of discussing another donation program with my team, surprisingly one of my team told me that she just got information that not all people were shown their interest to participate in AIDS program.

I haven’t met that person and planning to have a meeting with them next week. I’m eager to know what does the lack of interest mean.

Well, I’m not an expert, but for me, poverty is an issue of every nation, not just in Africa or Asia, it’s all over the world. The scale of poverty may vary but it will become an issue if a nation refused to admit that they have an issue or admit but refused to face the fact and only deal with the number.