Chapter 2: SDG 01; NO poverty and importance of role of individual.

No poverty, the most prior goal to be achieved in the Sustainable Development Goals to ending
poverty in its all form everywhere in the world. It is a worldwide social issue even in developed or developing countries as the biggest economies like India still struggling with poverty, but the solution to all problems around the world from hunger to peace and justice can be achieved by eradicating poverty on the equity basis from the world.

An informal discussions we had in the gathering of young leaders from different parts of the world about the generic problems of the poor people face in their life in which mainly people discussed  poverty impacts food security, poor health conditions of the poor people, their children leave education and get involved in child labor to earn, social equality is in threat concerning the different human development parameters, economical instability directly impact upon their living, poor living condition and also they live in places like slums and boundaries of cities close to water access where they don't have proper facilitations with living necessities and their unhygienic living  the style for which they are helpless due to various reasons make surroundings polluted which affects the environment tangibly and intangibly, they don't have clean water to drink, they are not facilitated with proper utilities and with facing all these problems they try to snatch from others or use illegal manners. They don't care for legal issues and have socially careless behavior which promotes extremism and destruction in a society that ultimately damages peace, if we see all 17 goals are directly focusing on each issue which was extracted from the discussion.

 The discussion also supports by the statement of US congresswoman Barbara lee she is committed with strong initiatives to end poverty around, she says “When people live in extreme poverty the whole world suffers. Extreme poverty endangers global public health, prevents children from going to school, and spreads hopelessness and despair. We all must combat it. As a member of Congress, I know that ending global poverty is a challenge that every nation needs to meet” (Ari Medina, 2015). There are some statistics says that from 2 in 10 person people are living below the poverty line in each developing or underdeveloped country (United Nations, 2015). For eliminating poverty around the world by 2030 under goal 1 of SDGs they set the targets which are as follows; 

1. By 2030, eradicate extreme poverty for all people everywhere, currently measured as people living on less than $1.25 a day.
2. By 2030, reduce at least by half the proportion of men, women, and children of all ages living in poverty in all its dimensions according to national definitions.
3. Implement nationally appropriate social protection systems and measures for all, including floors, and by 2030 achieve substantial coverage of the poor and the vulnerable.
4. By 2030, ensure that all men and women, in particular, the poor and the vulnerable, have equal rights to economic resources, as well as access to basic services, ownership, and control over land and other forms of property, inheritance, natural resources, appropriate new technology, and financial services, including microfinance.
5. By 2030, build the resilience of the poor and those in vulnerable situations and reduce their exposure and vulnerability to climate-related extreme events and other economic, social, and environmental shocks and disasters.
6. Ensure significant mobilization of resources from a variety of sources, including through enhanced development cooperation, to provide adequate and predictable means for developing countries, in particular, least developed countries, to implement programs and policies to end poverty in all its dimensions.
7. Create sound policy frameworks at the national, regional and international levels, based on pro-poor and gender-sensitive development strategies, to support accelerated investment in poverty eradication actions (UNDP, 2015).

Before going to start our actual discussions that how individual and community can help out eliminating poverty, we will look up to some aspect of poverty to understand them because poverty is not a concept which includes food, shelter, clothes, and daily necessities but also economical and different contemporary facilities like health, education, daily use electricity, gas and clean water to drink if anyone is not having these facilities also comes under poverty we will understand this concept in detail.

Poverty and its concept

The word poverty is understood in our society generally as a low income earning person while if we see the views of the social scientists we find poverty as the most dimensional subject. Because it is attached to many sides for example; physical and mental health, education, social life, environmental quality, spiritual and political exploitations, and generally disturb society in all matters also deprivation is an important part of poverty. In this, the Human Development Index has its parameter to measure the poverty which is directly addressing the social capacity development of the human. Like sharing my experience in Africa I have seen people consider poverty not having a coffin to bury your family member strange, isn't it? it was for me too.

There are different concepts and understandings of poverty around a society that requires separate discussion but ultimately here we have to focus solution more with the summarise discussion.  When we ask people around from rural and urban living what they think of poverty people the answer like lacking property, disability, cannot afford livestock and its expenses, lacking social support, those are not having food properly even we saw people saying those are unable to bury their people in the grave is poor which shows a clear image of people about poverty. Generally, there are mainly two types of poverty is known as Relative and absolute poverty.

Relative poverty:

It defines the people who do not have sufficient income to manage their standing in society and compete to live by fulfilling the basic necessities. It is really easy to analyze relative poverty within a country or at an international level by comparing societies It mostly emerges due to lacking affordable resources, unemployment, low educational standards, etc. (Study.com).

Absolute Poverty

Absolute poverty is, that one person is not able to fulfill basic survival needs like food, clothing, and shelter. People facing such poverty do not have access to clean water and a safe living environment. Also in this term, people are unable to approach the daily base necessities which are foundational requirements to live even, but it varies with the region to region and country to a country besides monetary fluctuations (Reference.Com).

Some factors are there to impact in a society in terms of poverty due to disasters, widespread diseases, unequal distribution and any physical disability which are also playing a role in increasing the rate of poverty.  

Recommendations for individual role

As we have discussed, the realization of any individual to develop society is significant, and it creates the opportunity for sustainable development. In history or in today's we can see and observe the role of community, where they realize their duties and exclude blaming style from their life succeed and prosper with their socio-economic condition. They try to put their part to develop a society in every way which helps society to grow tangibly and intangibly. So now there is something which in my opinion can be done on an individual level to fight with issues of poverty inactive manner while feeling true responsibility as country members and owner of the land. Here they as follows;

Volunteerism

Most of the people ignore working voluntarily because it is unpaid and they are not going to have any physical benefit or tangible achievements. Around world volunteers are unpaid not for that they don't have worth but the cant is paid even with millions because they are priceless with their efforts and expertise, I am sure you all can have an argument about the behavior of the organizations which is not good even but that can be discussed and our attitude made it better. The people in fields like Professional Doctors, Engineers, Social scientists, Social Mobilizer, advocates, teachers, etc. can volunteer their self to help people out because some people in the communities are unable to pay them for their services and cannot take direct benefits with their expertise.

 For example, if you are a doctor and you know community near to you living is below the poverty line give them free treatment let them your checking fees or give them a discount on operations by just taking out your fair operational cost and make your service free. Same as if you are a teacher or higher education student (having some knowledge to teach others) you can go to the people living in the area near to you those are not able to send their children to school you can teach them bu developing nonformal schoolings for them in which you can check the various varieties. You are a lawyer if any poor come to you who cannot afford your service charges faithfully help him to support and keep your service charges on the side either you can support one person (mostly underdeveloped and developing countries facing this issue so much booming). From the student to professional and retired people from different fields should volunteer to cope with the target of ending poverty and hunger.

Charity

Charity is also a part of volunteering but we cannot make it specific to that, because volunteerism is been made through our time for others' support excluding any monetary or materialistic profits.  The charity can be in the form of monetary, tangible useable items like clothes, food items, books, etc. The charity can help us out to eliminate poverty we might thing that how the 1 rupee, 1 cent or 1 penny we are giving can end up poverty? it can create an impact to make others responsible and realize them to take part nothing can be measured by its size but its impact. Giving clothes to the poor, supporting them in a monetary term like in family we collect charity and support someone to build a small business which will help him and also create an impact upon GDP of country and country revenue as it prospers. The human development shifts come in the life of a household from contributing to the life of one person in developing countries we can see many examples.
 If you can donate books give to people who are working on non-formal schooling support them providing stationeries logistic support; perhaps in any way, you can do. It is essential to shift our charity model from stability to sustainability, where penny brings lifetime change besides support for a moment.

Social Fund for development

Try to interact with people living around you there are certain problems we have in our surrounding, mostly we different socioeconomic class people living in and settling from different diversified backgrounds, they can create social fund process in the society where they should discuss a model of the social fund to generate the small funding generation to find the solution for their micro problem and they should not wait for the help of the other. For example, if there is a problem in area sewerage set up so people can contribute to solving out while there is lacking from the government which is understandable in developing or underdeveloped countries. But if you make them feel socially responsible they will feel threatened by the society for their votes and also people will get aware tangibly about their problems and vote sensibly which helps to improve their country policy development structure. People can fix the amount to be contributed every end of the month even if this per head 10 rupees, 10 cents or 10 pennies allocate that funds for community development regarding infrastructure, social issues, and development of society within different aspects

Community-saving groups

Community-saving groups can be formed which are working around the world in communities with a different name, if we look in short detail it works like a small informal bank which can be accessed anytime. It works like that, every person contribute up to its capacity or community can fix the amount and make stakeholders run those funds in which they are accountable to work with the consent of the society. 

If someone needs a loan he can easily take it some setups puts interest on the taken amount but some are interest-free while with discussion with CSG specialists which includes from different organizational backgrounds said the interest-free setups have a good percentage of return and people feel comfortable to own those loans and participant in it besides putting the interest on the provided amounts. The loans can be taken for individual purpose but they should be for health, education, business development (if he/she is poor and need for some source of income), marriage support (but specific to single mother or people are really poor cannot afford to arrange a marriage ceremony but not for dowry). It can be called as banking for poor people.

Social enterprise

Social enterprise is a kind of entrepreneurship in which the business established by a person according to social needs. For example, an area does not have any stationery shop and people have to face problems to access the commodity or walk to long distance to purchase their needs of schools and Colleges etc if someone see this issue and build up stationery business in that area and earn money with it so it is known as social entrepreneurship but in it social benefit should be focused primarily on money. In Pakistan, you can see the model of Akhuwat Foundation and internationally a lot of the organizations in which Grameen bank is considered as a Prior example.

Needs Vs wishes

There are families mostly in Asian countries who want to develop life by looking at the others neglecting their condition. Like if any relative buys a car they will try to buy in different ways like taking on the lease, installment and high-interest rate mark up just to compete with them through which they are unable to maintain their budget which leads them to uncertainty, instability in their life and in some cases they have to give wants for their wishes. As an individual is it is really important to focus initially on their needs and important life development like children's education, good and healthy environment-based accommodation, savings for any unpredictable situations like health problems, higher educational support for children, etc. Do not try to put yourself into hardship try to manage your budget and use it in a productive way.

Bibliography

Ari Medina. (2015, October 31). Retrieved January 19, 2017, from Global Citizen: https://www.globalcitizen.org/en/content/end-poverty-end-hunger/

Reference.Com. (n.d.). world-view. Retrieved from Reference: https://www.reference.com/world-view/different-types-poverty-1e83a1cf0dcf086f#

Study.com. (n.d.). academy/Lessons. Retrieved from Study.com: http://study.com/academy/lesson/what-is-relative-poverty-definition-causes-examples.html

UNDP, 2. (2015). Sustainable Development. Retrieved January 17, 2017, from UNDP: http://www.undp.org/content/undp/en/home/sustainable-development-goals/goal-1-no-poverty.html

United Nations. (2015). Goals. Retrieved January 19, 2017, from Sustainable Development goals, 17 goals to transform the world: http://www.un.org/sustainabledevelopment/poverty/