Erica B. Blog Post 5

1. In his essay, Flavio's Home, Gordon Parks writes about a little 12 year old boy that changed Parks' life after a trip to Catacumba, Brazil. This little boy's name is Flavio da Silva. He and a partner were sent there to do a story on an impoverished father with a family. They then had to examine all of his finances and feelings and beleifs. Along the way, they found somebody even more interesting. they came across flavio and instantly notices how malnourished he was. They compared his legs to sticks that were just screwed into his ankles. But somehow through the malnourishment and the pain he managed to look at Parks and his partner and give them a big smile. The two men knew that Flavio was a better story than any father. They followed him home to his shack which he shared with two parents and seven other children. Parks and Gallo observed the way they had been living as well as how bad Flavios health was. They took him to the local clinic but the doctor was no help. He told them that Flavio had sypmtoms of bronchial asthma, malnutrition and tuberculosis and didn't give him much longer to live.

After reading this essay my heart was broken. I always knew that poverty still existed, but I never realized that it was still this severe in some parts of the world. I wish there was something that I could do to help these people out. They have no way to get out without anybody elses help. Even though Falvio's dad worked, they still barely had enough food to feed the family. Some people might not even be able to eat everyday. I think we take the things that we have for granted. Some of us see ourselves as middle or even low class. But in their eyes we are living like royalty. As a matter of fact they probably can't even picture some of the luxuries we have. Even if it is just a bed and a blanket. Knowing that there are kids like Flavio running around makes me furious that nobody helps them. Poverty needs to come to an end.

Make Poverty History. Photograph. Wikimedia. 2 July 2005. Web. 13 Apr. 2010. .


2. According to the millenium campaign, poverty will come to an end in the year 2015. Poverty has been a deadly disease that has overcome the world for hundreds and thousands of years and there has not yet been a cure for it. While some places have been able to overcome poverty and had the chance to flourish, many places are still being held down by this nasty disease. So how is it that all of the sudden we have found some miracle cure for poverty that will take action within the next five years, when nobody has been able to put an end to it up until now. Could the magical cure be paying women to take birth control? I think not. I also think that is one of the stupidest and most absurd ideas I have ever heard. When you first think about it, it might sound like a good idea. The less children a women has, the less people that are suffering from poverty. But if the Government has the money to pay women just to take a little pill, why don't they have the money to just help them in general. The director of the millenium project, Jeffrey Sachs, suggests that there are five ways that we are going to acheive the end of poverty. Boost agriculture, Improve basic health, Invest in education, Power transport and communications, and lastly safe drinking water and sanitation. While birth control may help slow down poverty, it will never be able to defeat it. If people would help those in need, poverty would have been in history already.


End Poverty 2015 We Are the Generation That Can End Poverty. Web. 14 Apr. 2010. .

www.public.iastate.edu/~cfford/TheEndofPoverty.ppt