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Behind the Beautiful Forevers written by Katherine Boo is based on an extraordinary story of life, death and hope in a Mumbai under city named Annawadi. It is written in non-fiction, which makes the story very compelling to the reader. The economic inequality in Behind the Beautiful Forevers is regarding developing countries more or less regarding health, poverty, socio economic status and infrastructure. The number of people currently populated in poverty in India is more than 300 million, which is almost one third of the countries population. It is the deepest among rural and remote populations in India. Residences range from dwellings with poor quality deigns to poor structure called slums. A slum is a heavily populated
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settlement lacking efficient sanitation; clean water, reliable electricity as well as food. Almost no one has permanent work. Workers improvise even with garbage to make a living, fighting for a chance. Mortality and morbidity rates are high regarding a decline in optimum levels of health care resulting in a deterioration of public health care and infrastructure. Behind the beautiful forevers comes the powerful story of families striving toward a better life in one of the 21st centuries great, unequal cities. Awasthi S, Agarwal S. () Determinants of childhood mortality and morbidity in urban slums in India, Available at: http://www.ncbi.nlm.nih.gov/pubmed/14722365 (Accessed: 2nd September 2014). The Challenge of Slums: Global Report on Human Settlements 2003". http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slum (Accessed: 2nd September 2014). Poverty With 3000 people living in Annawadi, poverty in Mumbai is at such a high-speed growth that it posses several problems relating to disease, pollution and the concentration of the poor.
Poverty creates ill- health because it forces people to live in environments that make them sick without clean water or adequate sanitation. Poverty denies people access to reliable health services and affordable medicines, and causes children to miss out on vaccinations which would be given routinely in more developed countries. Poverty creates illiteracy, leaving people poorly informed about health risks and forced into dangerous jobs that harm their health as well as poor choices when it comes to contraceptive use and children. Cities have become the best place to foster poverty amongst the outskirts of Mumbai. As cities grow so do the slums as well as more migrants from low socio economic status. Home to a rich culture, delicious food, a thriving economy, and over a billion people, India is a land of extremes: extreme wealth, but also extreme …show more content…
poverty. http://www.poverties.org/urban-poverty-in-india.html Abdul recalls telling that he, Only gets fresh for fresh days. To Abdul, getting fresh was just as self-deceiving as the day preceding it. To me I feel quite disappointed for Abdul because ‘Getting fresh” in my lifestyle is seen as a daily ritual because I have a hope that something good is going to occur. There is a giant Gap in society today when it comes to socio economic boundaries due to health, infrastructure as well as population. Australia, being a multicultural society but a rich society at best provides support for people whom need it most. Those struggling in India would suffer from being below the poverty line as well as life behind the beautiful forever walls. In contrast, Australia as well as myself takes things for granted as people of this safe society. Scarcity of medical supplies Medicine wasn’t one of the main amenities at Cooper hospital, which millions of people of India relied on. Fatima, whom is referred to as the one legged female in Behind the Beautiful Forevers, is an older woman with a long hard life behind her. Fatima was spiked with illness due to unclean water supply in her younger years leaving her with one leg. She becomes suicidal which is what makes her life so unbearable. Fatima becomes so furious over an event that occurred due to Abdul that she becomes suicidal, and annihilates herself on fire. Fatima survives the incident just long enough to lie about what happened. As a consequence of her death she blackmails Abdul and he becomes accused of murder. The Fatima catastrophe is at the heart of Behind the Beautiful Forevers followed by Abduls experiences with society. Abdul’s experiences at the hands of India’s criminal justice system reveal a degree of corruption In Australia we have one of the most affordable and accessible health care systems in the world. We are developed country with low morbidity and mortality rates. In cooper hospital where many patients lie on the floor, high morbidity was at its peak and mortality rates where growing by the minute. Food wasn’t one of the amenities of which people depended upon although medicine was. As a nurse at cooper hospital explained, Out of stock today. This killed people’s hope of getting to a healthy state. Healthy was almost unseen in poor communities of India. There was high demand for essential items such as medicine at cooper. Supplies were low which is what made life so hard for people at Annawadi. Not knowing when they were going to receive medicine made slum dwellers loses all hope of the future. Inappropriate response to medial issues, and insufficient funding to provide the people of India with correct medical assistance for example medicine, food water, burn cream etc. was a hard task at hand for the people of India. http://www.fsdinternational.org/country/india/healthissues Work and infrastructure- Socio economic vulnerability The global financial crisis hit Annawadi hard in the end of year 2008. With a global recession in flight jobs failed, money was almost non-existent and the price of food decreased. With the dark loom of suicide in the midst of Annawadi’s slum, the hope of economic growth as well as the hope of jobs was almost non-existent. In Annawadi slum the poorest of the poor are unfortunately not organized into communities. The lack of infrastructure makes slum dwellers more fragile to their environment and they cannot rely on anyone for economic help regarding food, water, power etc. The one thing that governmental organisations lack in Mumbai is the lack to provide help and support to solve urban poverty in India. Finding out who needs what is an absolute imperative in trying to target the needs of the people whom need it most. India has a population of almost 1.2 billion people. 50 per cent of the population or 600 million, have no access to clean sanitation including water and toilets. 63 per cent of the population is without proper sanitation. Most wastes are disposed of in rivers, canals and lakes. Such facilities are poorly funded in India. Most of the industries in India run without having any standard mechanism of waste disposal. The drainage system is inadequate as well as infrastructure in certain parts of town is almost non-existent from streetlights to sewers. The struggle for survival every day, as well as butting heads with their neighbours and the corruptive police make things hard in Annawadi, especially for Abdul. Abdul and his family have been making a steady living in their time in the slum, although with their Muslim background behind them it paints a strong target on their backs for defeat. Abdul comes undone when he is at the pit stop between detention and jail. He goes under a medical examination to determine his age. The Major corruption is when his doctor says You are 17 years old if you pay two thousand rupees, or you are 20 years old if you do not. Abdul worked hard his entire life and was rewarded with Jail. An ugly lie by Fatima sends Abdul away. I think many people are hard working, kind, and never do anything immoral or wicked, and sometimes find they are unlucky and sometimes unfairly punished. When someone does everything in their power to help themselves and are always getting the short end of the stick, it can be demoralizing. It is no secret that police officers of India are the basis of corruption in the city with habits to regularly take money from inhabitants of Annawadi. http://www.poverties.org/org/urban-poverty-in-india.html#sthash.NepUXgzl.dpuf http://connectyourworld.weebly.com/behind-the-beautiful-forevers-abdul-husain.html Water and clean sanitation Illnesses caused by germs, wastes and pollutants are a common discomfort for many inhabitants of Annawadi. Sanitation is the first step to achieving the goal of public health. India is still lagging behind many countries in the field of healthy clean sanitation. Clean sanitation is seen as an integral part of society. It aims at improving the quality of life. Poor sanitation is not only something that affects the health of people in a country especially Fatima or a community, but it also affects people’s quality of life. Annawadi’s slum dwellers suffer from inadequate water and sanitation in even the basic of human needs. Abdul only gets fresh for fresh days. He saw no excuse for it because he was only going to get dirty again. As Abdul explained: Getting fresh for a fresh day, in which something new might happen! He thought it was better to start the day by acknowledging that it was just going to be as dull as the day preceding it, that way he wouldn’t be disappointed. In a city where sewage and rubbish is seen as the norm, it also creates havoc and creates playgrounds for small children causing death and disease. Annawadi experiences unclean, unsafe water first hand and some villages do not have the infrastructure including clean toilets, allowing residences to excrete wastes on the street of the slum. The water is often unsafe and highly contaminated but they have no other alternative. Most of the rubbish and waste is dumped into the rivers, lakes and canals around the city where children eat the scrub grass growing from the waters. But such facilities are poorly funded in India. More than 5000 people everyday die of poor hygiene related to unsafe water and sanitation. Most of these people are children. Millions of women and children walk for hours everyday to collect water for their households. Safe water security for the less developed in India is a matter based around economic security. In India USAID created a 34 million dollar water, sanitation and hygiene project to provide slum dwellers with education on how to preserve water and provide them with multiple water sanitation systems. http://www.cdc.gov/healthywater/global/wash_statistics.html Secretary of state booklet http://thirdeyemom.com/2013/01/25/wateraid-imagine-life-without-access-to-clean-water/ Reducing poverty and empowering communities Boo has portrayed a small insight into the lives of real people of Annawadi by sharing their everyday lives including the workers in the slum that make up one reality of urban poverty.
The pickers and collectors of waste are at the very bottom of the social order. Even by the standards of urban poverty in India the living conditions are at best appalling. The bare necessities are enough for inhabitants in the terrible slum of Annawadi to be happy.
With Australia being a more developed country with a population of currently 23.5 million people and growing Australia is seen as a rich country with money, jobs, infrastructure, clean hygiene and clean water. There are financial benefits for individuals whom lack funding from jobs or broken families. We are seen as a higher-class society and are rich not because of money because we have the access to these necessities. Sewage systems and water facilities are kept out of the way in treatment plants closer to rural areas of Australia providing clean cities. I believe we live in a society where water scarcity is unseen and poor hygiene is almost unheard
of. http://www.abs.gov.au/ausstats/abs@.nsf/0/1647509ef7e25faaca2568a900154b63?opendocument Reducing poverty and empowering communities – booklet Asha’s daughter, Manju is a 23-year-old woman whom is hoping to be the first college graduate. With Manju teaching English in schools 5 hours a day, she hopes to one day become a qualified teacher and to gain expertise. For several years, Manju had created 24 kindergarten schools non-for profit creating hope for the children of Annawadi. The government of Mumbai would end up paying her more than 10,000 dollars for this fictitious work. I believe children can most likely achieve a way out of urban poverty if they have help as children. An education where children learn how to follow directions, and access to birth control as teenagers, can make an enormous difference in some children’s lives.With the poor seen as being at the bottom of the human pyramid, women are at best the working poor. They have the strong ability to work and show their families that they hold the ability to improve their standard of living by borrowing money from the Grameen bank to start businesses. The amount of money provided can range from as little as 50-100 dollars which helps 40,000 Indian women every year. Muhammad Yunus is the founder of the Grameen bank, which provides women with funding. He believes that a world without poverty is an achievable goal. http://www.dawn.com/news/700090/the-lives-behind-new-hit-book-on-mumbai-slums Yunus piece of paper – reference. Poor women and financial services booklet Conclusion It is hard to believe that Annawadi is the state of poverty occurring in a 21st century world today. Annawadi is a tough and insecure life where powerless individuals blame other powerless individuals for what they lack. It is not that India has inherited this poverty; it just naturally exists where a city of luxury is substituted for poverty. I believe Boo has portrayed a powerful piece of journalism within her book. The best that the people can hope for is that the police don't steal their savings, that the airport doesn't bulldoze their shelters, that their children stay healthy. After finishing this book, none of these hopes appears particularly realistic. Poverty has become the face of the 21st century and if nothing is done about it poverty will destroy lives on an epic scale.
While it may be easier to persuade yourself that Boo’s published stories are works of fiction, her writings of the slums that surround the luxury hotels of Mumbai’s airport are very, very real. Katherine Boo’s book “Behind the Beautiful Forevers – Life, Death, and Hope in a Mumbai Undercity” does not attempt to solve problems or be an expert on social policy; instead, Boo provides the reader with an objective window into the battles between extremities of wealth and poverty. “Behind the Beautiful Forevers,” then, exposes the paucity and corruption prevalent within India.
The book Maybe Someday, written by Colleen Hoover; is about a college student, her name is Sydney. Sydney lives with her best friend Tori and has a boyfriend whose name is Hunter. Sydney finds out that Hunter had been cheating on her with Tori, as this is all going on Sydney finds herself a friend named Ridge, he lives in the same apartment complex as her. Ridge also has a girlfriend named Maggie. Sydney and ridge instantly have a strong connection that they can’t ignore, they connect through music.
The novel "Behind the Beautiful Forevers" written by - opens with a prologue that introduces the audience to Abdul, a garbage sorter in the Mumbai slums of Annawadi. Here Abdul is hiding in his family's garbage shed, hiding from the authorities in fear of being arrested for being falsely accused of setting his neighbor Fatima on fire. Abdul has tried his whole life to stay out of trouble and provide a well-off life for his family things seem to be falling apart. The novel then rewinds to January 2008, seven months before the burning of Fatima. Abdul, who is the Husain family's oldest son (sixteen or seventeen years old), he collects recyclables to sell to plants, which helps support his family of thirteen and his parents Zehrunisa
The socio economic status and outcomes are based on, the people are rich, their health would be better than those who are poor. Poverty has many roots- material deprivation (of food, shelter, sanitation and safe drinking water), Social exclusion, Lack of education, unemployment and lower income, that all work together to reduce opportunities, limit choices, undermine hope, result, threaten health (sen, 2003). Poverty has been linked many higher prevalence health conditions, increase risk of chronic disease, injury, deprived infant development, stress, anxiety, depression and premature death (NFHS-3,
“Hope is like the sun, which, as we journey toward it, casts the shadow of our burden behind us”(Samuel Smiles). The book, Behind the Beautiful Forevers, written by Katherine Boo, depicts a troublesome slum that is trapped in a rapidly revolving culture. Where time is progressing continuously for the rest of the world, the slums of Annawadi are stuck in it’s backlash. In a place invisible to ignorant eyes, the future of Annawadi was doomed from the start. Annawadi was polluted by society and the people who call its slums their home. Annawadi can even be called an eternal illusion that traps and manipulates its people. In a place where misery and pain is guaranteed, a light a created to keep out the dark. Hope falsely created by the people of
Poverty and health infections are inextricably related. The term “diseases of poverty” is used to describe disabilities or diseases that are more prevalent in poor countries than their developed counterparts. It is estimated that 50, 00 people, of which 30,000 are children, die due to poverty-related diseases each day in underdeveloped countries (Stevens, 2008). This is exclusive of other millions of people who die from unpreventable diseases in these countries. Nearly three-quarters of people living in the third world, especially in sub-Saharan Africa, fight to survive without clean water or food. In some cases, diseases of poverty are considered to be obstacles to the economic development that would curb poverty. In contrast to diseases of poverty there are diseases of affluence. Affluence diseases are ailments or disabilities that are more prevalent in developed countries. Activists claim that virtually all diseases of poverty in underdeveloped countries are neglected. Many scholars argue that the pharmaceutical industry has not taken any substantial steps in investing and has failed to devote sufficient efforts in research for these diseases. The discussion in this paper expands more on some of the common diseases in low-income countries; also seeks to explore why these diseases are
Poverty is an ever-growing problem throughout our modern world, with millions living in its extremes. There are many consequences of poverty and the way they affect children and family life is absolutely detrimental. Poverty can be simply defined as “the state of one who lacks a usual or socially acceptable amount of money or material possessions” (Encyclopedia Britannica 2014). There are two distinct variations of poverty – absolute poverty and relative poverty, which will be further discussed throughout this essay. The total number of people worldwide who live on less than $2.50 (the bare minimum of the poverty line) is 3 billion (Global Issues, The Human Development Report, 2012). According to many, there are a varied number of consequences for those who live in poverty, especially children and families. The effects of poverty have proven to have detrimental effects on child development and the nature of family life. Saunders (2005) reiterates these factors of poverty in his book “The Consequences of Poverty”. This essay will state the many aspects of poverty and the detrimental effects its holds within child development, family life and the health of indiviudals.
Around the world, people are born into poverty against their own will. The location in which they are born will determine the level of difficulty in escaping their poverty. The caste system is a well-known way of life associated with Hindus, who are predominantly found in India. India is known to have the most extreme poverty conditions in the world, and the caste system makes it hard to escape such poverty. However, North Americans do not have such problems because of the opportunities that are offered, and the less obvious classifying of society. Location is an essential component when it comes to whether a person will be doomed to hardship or will eventually escape.
Nearly 50,000 people, including 30,000 children, die each day due to poverty-related problems and preventable disease in underdeveloped Countries. That doesn’t include the other millions of people who are infected with AIDS and other incurable diseases. Especially those living in Sub-Saharan Africa (70%), or “the Third-World,” and while we fight to finish our homework, children in Africa fight to survive without food, or clean water. During the next few paragraphs I will give proof that poverty and disease are the two greatest challenges facing under developed countries.
“Poverty at Large: A Dark Spot in Humanity.” Causes of Poverty, 25 March 2014. Web. 26
Poverty is the root cause of hunger, disease, and lack of shelter. It is concentrated in pockets in areas such as South Africa and South Asia. Children, who must live in these areas, face, on a daily basis, parasitic waters, lack of adequate medical help and malnutrition.... ... middle of paper ... ...
With poor living conditions and over population can cause many forms of disease and unclean living conditions, and with poor living conditions you get the spread of airborne diseases such as tuberculosis and respiratory infections such as pneumonia. (Health poverty action). When people die of disease related deaths economic productivity declines as well as person tragedy. When this happens produ...
Mehta, Aasha K., and Amita Shah. 2002. Chronic poverty in India: overview study – defining the nature of chronic poverty in India. Manchester: Chronic Poverty Research Center.
The Untouchables of the caste system are seen by many as outcasts, unwanted humans who are simply unworthy of being seen on earth. Members of this class are considered impure from birth, because they perform unsanitary jobs, with little pay. For example, citizens who handle items polluted by blood or human waste, a leatherworker who works with animal skins, a weaver who creates cloth, a person who cremates or buries the dead, and a manual scavenger, are all considered Untouchable. A Dalit woman describes her day-to-day job as a “sweeper,” (collecting feces on the street), “I feel very sick. I can’t breathe. I can’t bend and lift the vessel” (Dalit Freedom Network). There is no way to escape these horrific jobs, she explains, “I have been asking the supervisor to give me another job, but he wont shift me from here” (Dalit Freedom Network). The illegal job of a manual scavenger is still present in many parts of India, and is still relied upon by societies in the country. Woman, however, are usually targeted for this grueling job. Safai Karmachari Andolan, a manual scavenger describes, “ I slipped and fell into the gutter. No one would come to pick me up because the basket was so dirty and I was covered with filth.” (). These horrific jobs, which untouchables are forced to participate in, severely damage their emotional and physical health.
Efficient waste managing approaches help with reducing and avoiding unpleasant impact on the environment and human health, while allowing financial development and progress in the quality of people’s life. People do not even imagine what is the size and capacity of their activities and the impact they produce on the environment. Garbage is an important ecological problem. It is seems amazing that approximately all of the citizens of the world identify rubbish as a major environmental problem and yet these people still litter. According to the Environmental Protection Agency (2008), an American produces 250 million tons of garbage per year (para.2). There are different circumstances that are based on the society, environmental conditions, occupation and size of each of the different family. As Richmond (2010) stated, if no administration organizations has the responsibility or resources to concentrate their efforts on the waste disposal, then the responsibility to do that is on ...