Poverty In Flavio's Home

Poverty: Is There an Answer?

I do not believe there is an answer for poverty because it’s such a big issue all around the world; however, it's more serious in some parts of the worlds than others. After reading “Flavio’s Home” I couldn’t understand how poverty existed in the United States as it does in Rio. America’s poverty will never compare to theirs, and the worst part is, that in other regions of the world, it's even worse. No wonder so many people put their lives at risk just to migrate to the U.S. in the hopes of a better life. People think that by migrating to better established countries than their own, it will decrease their chances of living in poverty. However poverty is just an issue that can’t ever be solved because everyone seeks more material possessions and money, which eventually runs out.

Many children in Rio are struggling every day to survive by battling

diseases and starvation in the slums of de Janeiro. Parks wrote, “It keeps growing, multiplying, spreading like a cancer” (Nadell 95). The majority of Rio’s population is Catholic, which contributes to the seemingly endless cycle of poverty in Brazilian slums. Because of their religion, they don’t believe in birth control; it’s considered a sin. This causes everyone to have children and the population multiplies, overcrowding the favelas of Rio. Even if the government were to pay poor women to use birth control, poverty would still exist because religious people would decline, and teenagers wouldn’t be eligible for financial incentives or their parents wouldn’t allow them to take birth control (Nadell 95). Also, it wouldn’t change the financial issues they have established in Rio.
When Jose da Silva was asked why his children weren’t in school, he replied, “I don’t have money for the clothes they need to go to school” (Nadell 99). The lack of education also keeps the cycle repeating. Catholic schools don’t allow children to attend without wearing the proper clothing, which is a button up shirt, black pants, and black shoes. It’s difficult for parents to afford uniforms because Rio doesn’t have a proper minimum wage system set up. Men always make more than the women, and most working wages are under a dollar an hour, making it impossible to feed their families and buy them clothes. Health care is awful as well. There is no system set up to help the people living in poverty if someone gets sick. “Last year ten thousand died from dysentery alone” (Nadell 100). Most children who live in the slums of Rio don’t make it past twelve years old due to all the illnesses they can catch in the over populated favelas. Diseases spread so fast, anything can be contagious. “There’s hardly enough money to buy aspirin” (Nadell 100). Pills that Americans can buy easily at drug stores are hard to afford. With such low income in Rio, the only way clinics can acquire them is if rich people donate them.
Not everyone can have the chance to migrate to the United States like Flavio did for medical treatment.

It has been every immigrant's dream just to visit the United States. Now that Flavio had the taste of freedom, he yearns for more resources provided in the U.S. such as education, medical assistance, and opportunities. So many immigrants put their lives at risk by crossing the border in hopes of reaching the American dream. Now America's future may be at risk due to poverty. It is important that all races work together to improve it. "We'll pay for your education if you pay for our retirement" (Aldhous). Legally, immigrants can only come to the United States of America if they have a work visa or student visa, but even with the student visa, immigrants have to pay to attend school on their own, so why would they pay to study here if they can’t spend the rest of their lives here? The quote above by Aldhous specifies that they’ll pay for their education if America pays for their retirement referring, to their freedom, because many immigrants sometimes are deported back to their

country.
Poverty in America can’t even be compared with what Rio de Janeiro deals with. Our economic problems deal with road safety, air lines, and city traffic, not major problems such as starvation and not providing health care. “Flight delays, a large share of which are caused by weather, cost the U.S. economy thirty-one billion annually” (Kanter). It's so ridiculous that the United states wastes so much money on delayed flights due to unpredicted weather, no wonder we're so in debt with financial costs. Instead we should help fix our health care and our poverty areas. We could even start a foundation to help countries with real needs and start a medical visa where the seriously ill can come to the U.S. to receive the treatment they need. “Rapidly advancing technology could allow vehicles to communicate with one another, a development that promises to reduce traffic accidents” (Kanter). Instead, we choose to waste more money in technology so that cars can communicate with each other when the problem is the drivers aren’t communicating with each other, causing us to waste more money.
Poverty may never be fully solved, but people can take precautions and do their part by taking birth control, striving for the education they need and by challenging themselves, and by helping others out. Countries all around the world have terrible economies and political views, including the United States. If everyone in the world did these things, poverty would probably be eliminated.