How you will define poverty?

Hmmm... Let me see, much has been written about the meaning of poverty. What we find through our work and frequent visits to poor communities is that poverty: Deprives people of their security and well-being; Deprives people not only of safe water and adequate food, clothing and shelter, but also education and healthcare; Takes away people’s rights, and their freedom, dignity and peace of mind; Puts people's lives in danger and robs them of their future. The existence of poverty in the 21st century is a scar on all our consciences.

Broadly, poverty is the term, when one is not able to fulfill his basic needs and requirements. If one is unable to eat food properly, he does not have proper clothes to wear and he does not have a place to live, he will said to have been suffering from poverty.

Poverty in Africa would mean that a family has very little money. They might struggle to feed their children and provide them clothing. They might live in a little mud hut and the children might walk to school where the classes are huge. Poverty in Europe would not be as basic. A family might be on lowly paid jobs and they might be having trouble paying bills. They would not have enough money to go on a foreign holiday or buy expensive gadgets like laptops. When I was on teaching practice some parents could not afford 5 pence a day for their child to have a bottle of milk. School uniform wasn't required and some of the families were poor seen through the children's clothes. On another teaching practice the families were either very poor or extremely wealthy. I did the topic holidays. A day out had to be considered a holiday just like two weeks in Jamaica. In my traveling I have seen many poor people happy and rich people miserable. Poverty in Tunisia in 1991 was very different to poverty in Norway in the same year. When a government has social security poor people benefit from it. It lifts them out of poverty.

interesting topic. It seems the UN is addressing the 3 most critical forms of poverty: - economic e.g. unemployment - social e.g. lack of help - ecological e.g. extremes of climate brought by global climate change Personally, I have learned that everyone else will be afflicted to a certain degree by other forms of poverty: - spiritual poverty e.g. atheism (though atheists may not agree it is a form of poverty) - physical e.g. a disability (though many differently abled(s) may disgaree it is a form of poverty) - psychological e.g. lack of peace of mind for some reason - intellectual e.g. (my personal affliction: lack of superior thinking ability) There is a saying "strictly speaking, it seems we are all suffering one or another form of poverty." Just my opinion ... please share your views on this