I see poverty all around me, so it’s never too far from my mind, but I am still shocked when I hear the numbers. In a meeting at work the other day, we were shown statements like this:
~~1 in 10 children on Portsmouth and Norfolk live in poverty
~~In Virginia, the average rate of extreme child poverty is 5.7 percent
~~More than half of Virginia’s children living in poverty live in deep poverty, less than 11,000 a year for a family of four
I was immediately embarrassed by the last statement because I have been thinking about how I might spend at least that much, if only I could make a little more money, get a part time job.
For about two weeks I’ve been reading about a local public official who is on trial for what prosecutors call greed.
A day after I heard the statistics above, I was looking around the sasee site and noticed that the editor wrote about http://www.globalrichlist.com/, so I thought I’d check it out.
The first thing I noticed was, “Seventy percent of those living on less than $1 per day are women.” While I know this thought is not new, the site and the meeting at work really made me think about the children in our classrooms and how many other things are on their minds that do not involve reading and writing.
The site, as it is designed to do, also made me think about perceptions of poverty. Even though poverty is never too far from my mind, I’m bombarded by images of wealth that often distort the value of what I have.
Go to the site and find out how rich you are.
~~1 in 10 children on Portsmouth and Norfolk live in poverty
~~In Virginia, the average rate of extreme child poverty is 5.7 percent
~~More than half of Virginia’s children living in poverty live in deep poverty, less than 11,000 a year for a family of four
I was immediately embarrassed by the last statement because I have been thinking about how I might spend at least that much, if only I could make a little more money, get a part time job.
For about two weeks I’ve been reading about a local public official who is on trial for what prosecutors call greed.
A day after I heard the statistics above, I was looking around the sasee site and noticed that the editor wrote about http://www.globalrichlist.com/, so I thought I’d check it out.
The first thing I noticed was, “Seventy percent of those living on less than $1 per day are women.” While I know this thought is not new, the site and the meeting at work really made me think about the children in our classrooms and how many other things are on their minds that do not involve reading and writing.
The site, as it is designed to do, also made me think about perceptions of poverty. Even though poverty is never too far from my mind, I’m bombarded by images of wealth that often distort the value of what I have.
Go to the site and find out how rich you are.
