A day in the world’s shoe
My school had an international day where they focused on one topic. That topic was a day in the world’s shoe. Which means the topic was basically poverty. An organization called Cross Roads came to our school and gave a presentation about poverty. They talked to us about people living in extreme poverty and what we could do to help. They did not ask us for money, but they showed how even the smallest amount of money, or clothes, or other items can help someone have a better life.
To show us the living conditions most of the people lived in they assigned us a group who represented our family. They gave us a square matt that represented our home and the space we had was tiny. They informed us that we would be making paper bags and selling them to shops in order to survive. They taught us how to make paperbags. It’s basically just folding a piece of paper, but since most people who are living in poverty can’t afford glue, they make glue out of mixing flour and water together. We used flour and water as our glue too. However we sometimes had sick members in the family or the shop keepers would rip up our paper bags. Some families earned enough money to send their kids to school. Some families weren’t able to pay for rent so they had to go live under the bridge where they borrowed money from a loan shark so that they could pay for their rent. However they had to payback the loanshark, so they had to work under the bridge making paper bags until the loan shark decided that their debt was paid. A few families weren’t able to afford sanitation, the consequences for that was that 4 members of the family had gotten diarrhea. Having familie members that were sick was bad for their survival, because less paperbags were being made and the family had to pay medical bills. The point of this activity was not to teach us how to make paper bags, but it ws to show us the lifestyle of 20% of the worlds population.
Having done the paper bag simulation I experienced the lifestyle of peole who live in extreme poverty. Those people have no rights indeciding what jobs they want because most of them were not educated. Bieng in an international school that made me feel guilty. Here we are being offered one of the best kind of education we could possibly get and most of us are taking it for granted. Most kids who are living in extreme poverty would do anything to be able to attend my school. Also, the lunch they prepared for us demonstrated how little food most people ate. I now understand why my mother stresses so much about me wasting food. The simulation we did made me want to grow up extremly successful so that i would be able to help a lot of people who are living in poverty. I’m not saying that i have to be an adult to help, but i’ll be able to help more if I have a big income. I’m happy that my school does a lot to help charities. For example our student council is donating half of the money they earn to charity and my school is currently raising money to biuld a school. This makes me realize that I am helping the people in need.
That day made me appreciative for my lifestyle. I learned not to take anythiing for granted because a lot of other people in this world would love to have my lifestyle. I learned that the person I could grow up to be could help lower poverty. Lastly i learned that no matter how big or how small your contribution is it can still help improve the lives of people living in extreme poverty.
