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Effects of poverty on cognitive development in children
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Many people in the world must face challenges both big and small, although some problems are harder to overcome than others. Families faced troubles when escaping North Korea, facing the dust bowl, and climbing out of the black hole of poverty. When escaping North Korea, families had to outwit different police in different places just to gain freedom, and had to lie and bribe just to get a good, honest, better life (Lee). On the other hand, shared in the movie “THE DUST BOWL” while facing the dust bowl, people left their homes, or otherwise was forced to stay and see their land, money, and lives devastated. Meanwhile, climbing out of the black hole of poverty is almost impossible to escape with a poor education due to tiny amounts of money …show more content…
They learned little of the world outside North Korea besides the point that America, Japan, and South Korea were enemies. They thought that their country was the best. Meanwhile, hunger raged on in North Korea. Millions of North Koreans died from the gripping, painful hunger. Hyseono Lee, a North Korean refugee states that “many [North Koreans] only survived by eating grass, bugs and tree bark.” Lastly, there was lots of public violence. At very young ages, citizens of North Korea saw their first public executions. Many problems in North Korea made living conditions severe, and surviving to plan your escape more …show more content…
Unfortunately, they had a misconception. In “Fighting Poverty with Education” the author, Cecilia R. Baker, stated “More than one-third of poor children were born into "deep poverty" — to parents living on incomes less than 50 percent of the federal poverty level” According to the Urban Institute in “Fighting Poverty with Education” 5.6% (5 is being repeated forever) of the United States was in “deep poverty.” On the other hand in the North Korean famine, at least 10% of the population starved to death (Crossette). Poverty struck North Korea even harder than in the United States. And not only did the North Koreans have to escape poverty, but they had to escape a whole country and it’s allies. Second, the suffering Americans are under a democracy with people caring for getting them out of poverty. On the other hand, in the dictatorship of North Korea, nobody helped. And after surviving the famine, the soon-to-be refugees would still need to escape North Korea. For these reasons and many others, escaping North Korea and surviving is harder than escaping poverty in the United
Blaine Harden, former national correspondent and writer for the New York Times, delivers an agonizing and heartbreaking story of one man’s extremely conflicted life in a labor camp and an endeavor of escaping this place he grew up in. This man’s name is Shin Dong-hyuk. Together, Blaine Harden and Shin Dong-hyuk tell us the story of this man’s imprisonment and escape into South Korea and eventually, the United States, from North Korea. This biography that takes place from 1982-2011, reports to its readers on what is really going on in “one of the world’s darkest nations” (back cover of the book), that is run under a communist state and totalitarian dictatorship that was lead by Kim Il-sung, Kim Jong-il, and currently lead by Kim-Jong un. In Escape from Camp 14, Shin shows us the adaptation of his life and how one man can truly evolve from an animal, into a real human being.
The first barrier to a better life had to do with surviving poverty or the absence of certain privileges. In Angela’s Ashes, Frank, the protagonist of the book, along with his family had to endure persistent rains, exposure to disease and starvation. Frank and Malachy Jr. had to resort to stealing food several ...
Overall, the SBS programme, Struggle Street (2015) provided a graphic insight into the hardships faced by lower-class Australians in Mount Druitt, Sydney. Nevertheless, viewing the programme allowed me to reflect and compare with my own observations of poverty within both Vietnam and Cambodia. The emotion I felt whilst watching the programme was incomparable to helplessly observing the great poverty within Cambodia.
The notion of poverty has a very expanded meaning. Although all three stories use poverty as their theme, each interprets it differently. Consequently, it does not necessarily mean the state of extreme misery that has been described in ?Everyday Use?. As Carver points out, poverty may refer to poverty of one?s mind, which is caused primarily by the lack of education and stereotyped personality. Finally, poverty may reflect the hopelessness of one?s mind. Realizing that no bright future awaits them, Harlem kids find no sense in their lives. Unfortunately, the satisfaction of realizing their full potential does not derive from achieving standards that are unachievable by others. Instead, it arises uniquely from denigrating others, as the only way to be higher than someone is to put this person lower than you.
“In twentieth-century America the history of poverty begins with most working people living on the edge of destitution, periodically short of food, fuel, clothing, and shelter” (Poverty in 20th Century America). Poverty possesses the ability to completely degrade a person, as well as a family, but it can also make that person and family stronger. In The Jungle, by Upton Sinclair, a family of immigrants has to live in severe poverty in Packingtown, a suburb of Chicago. The poverty degrades the family numerous times, and even brings them close to death. Originally the family has each other to fall back on, but eventually members of the family must face numerous struggles on their own, including “hoboing it” and becoming a prostitute. The Jungle, a naturalistic novel by Upton Sinclair, reveals the detrimental effects that a life of poverty exerts on the familial relationships of immigrants in Chicago during the early 1900’s.
The tenement was the biggest hindrance to achieving the American myth of rags to riches. It becomes impossible for one to rise up in the social structure when it can be considered a miracle to live passed the age of five. Children under the age of five living in tenements had a death rate of 139.83 compared to the city’s overall death rate of 26.67. Even if one did live past the age of five it was highly probable he’d become a criminal, since virtually all of them originate from the tenements. They are forced to steal and murder, they’ll do anything to survive, Riis appropriately calls it the “survival of the unfittest”. (Pg.
Most of the population today, mainly the younger generations, do not know exactly how good they have it or how much worse the quality of life can be. Personally, I’ve been fortunate enough in my life to not have experienced too many hardships. It was a real eye-opener for me after my interview with Mary Fowler, Great Depression survivor. She has been a close friend to my grandmother for as long as I can remember, but I have never heard her real story.
Those who seek to defect from North Korea face a multitude of difficulties when trying to exit the country. Obviously, the borders, especially between North and South Korea, are heavily guarded with troops, mine fields and electric fences that can fry any person who touches them. Even if one is lucky enough to cross the border, when in another country, it is very hard to stay there because as a newcomer in that country, one would be questioned about their origin and have background checks. If one is discovered to be a North Korean, it is very possible that they are sent back. Also, by leaving or at least trying to leave North Korea, one would be putting their entire living families lives at risk. If the North Korean government found out who defected, the person family would surely be forced into concentration camps until they
However, she never really experienced the actual life of living in poverty as the majority of people living in poverty experience. Barbara, an educated white women had just that on other people living in poverty, because of the color of her skin and education level that is more often than not restricted from people living in poverty. She was able and more qualified for jobs than other people living amongst the status she was playing. She also was able to more readily seek better benefits than people living in poverty. When she first start her journey in Florida she had a car, a car that in most cases people living in poverty do not have. She was also able to use the internet to find local jobs and available housing in the area that many people living in poverty are restricted from. Another great benefit she had was the luxury of affording a drug detox cleansing her of drugs deemed bad. Many people living in poverty do not have much extra cash laying around much less fifty dollars to afford a detox for prescription drugs. She also had the luxury to afford her prescription drugs, another option that many people living in poverty do not have. Another element that made Barbara’s experience not that genuine was the fact that she was not providing for anybody other than herself. Twenty-two percent of kids under the age of 18 are living below the poverty line (http://npc.umich.edu/poverty/#5) , Barbara did not have to provide for pets or kids which would of changed her experience altogether of living in poverty. Not to belittle Barbara’s experience, but many factors of what life is like living in poverty were not taken into consideration during her
Obstacles are opportunities in disguise. If a person is starving with only one sunflower seed, he/she has a choice to either plant the sun flower seed or to eat it. His obstacle is only having one sunflower, but his opportunity is to plant it. Women and men from urban areas are faced with these decisions everyday of choosing starvation v. assurance, mind v. matter, now v. forever. They are hit with harsh reality in some of the most severe ways, that the bad options can outweigh the good. Alternatively, there those who are hit, though they fight back. The obstacles of living in an urban environment, being faced with controversial experiences, and their relationships during their childhood are what shaped their character and possibly dictate
Imagine standing outside trying to farm your dying crops. All of a sudden, the sky gets dark. You look up and see a big, black cloud heading straight towards your town. You attempt to seek shelter, but it is too late. Cars come to a complete stop, and people rush to get cover. The cloud of dirt sweeps into your small town, and you can no longer see anything but only feel the gritty dirt blowing against your skin. This occurrence is what people experienced during the Dust Bowl. In the historical fiction book, Out of the Dust, the author, Karen Hesse, describes the hardships that Billie Jo and her family faced during the worst years of the Dust Bowl. Hesse depicts the effects of the dust storms, reasons for the occurrence of the dust storms,
Little is known about North Korea except for news stories concerning international terrorism, nuclear arms threats, and prison camps. From space, North Korea is shrouded in darkness like the history that surrounds this country. This is due to the nation's strict closed-country policy: not many outsiders have visited there and not many North Koreans have traveled to the outside world. While little action can be taken to help the North Korean people, action taken by the United Nations is crucial. Recently, United Nations human rights investigators issued a horrific report documenting massive human rights violations in North Korea. The United Nations feels these crimes of humanity should be brought to the International Criminal Court. UN members work to "promote and encourage respect for human rights and fundamental freedoms for all without distinction as to race, sex, language, or religion” (Youth For Human Rights). North Korea unlike any other country in the world cannot be reported on fully because of regulations on people entering its boundaries.
What do you think of when you hear the word “famine”? Do you think of natural disasters, of unpredictable tragedy, of innocent lives lost? Tragedy and death are inherent to the concept of starvation on a large scale, but the nature of some famines may have as much to do with politics as it does with the environment. What I expected to uncover as I began my research on the 1994-98 famine in North Korea was food shortages on a massive scale as a result of terrible growing conditions, extreme climates, unpredictable and unpreventable circumstances, for the most part. Admittedly, my knowledge of famine was limited to what I knew of the countryside of pre-communist China, where the most sustenance provided by the land the bare minimum was, and any number of external changes negatively effecting growth of or access to crops could equal devastation for entire regions. With that as my frame of reference, I was surprised by the uniquely political circumstances behind the famine in North Korea. The famine that killed 2-3 million in the 1990's was more closely tied to its independence from the southern half of the Korean peninsula it had once shared, to the fall of communism and the Soviet Union, than to any singular natural disaster. The millions that died did so as a result of their government prioritizing its independence over their survival, its budget over their sustenance. North Korea's famine was born of 1950's conflict, fueled by 1990's politics, and sustained by human error and hubris from within.
...p them from achieving peace and order. Today, there is enough evidence that Korea has been a prosperous country aside from all their sufferings; their presence is felt by the whole world.
Imagine having to work a 100 hour work week as a slave, being so desperate for food that you eat snakes, rats, and human corpses to stay alive, and being forced to witness public executions of your closest family members. This is the reality for the 176,000 political and associative prisoners living in North Korean prisons with no rights, no trial, and no reason. The world will have to regard the human rights abuses in North Korean as an important issue if we wish to stop the torture, murder, and starvation that it enforces on its people.