Chapter 7 : Student Generated Notes: Living the Good Life: Breaking the Cycle of Poverty

1. Chapter 7 : Student Generated Notes: Living the Good Life: Breaking the Cycle of Poverty • Food, clothing, shelter, health care, and education are all basic requirements for a good life. • A life of dignity allows one to thrive as God intended • Poverty is defined as: • Not having the basic things one needs to live a full and dignified life. • Catholic social teaching does not require absolute equality in distribution of in come and wealth… • But extreme inequality that causes people to suffer as a result of poverty runs contrary to God’s will for his creation. • Poor people are always at greater risk of death than people who are not poor. • Chronic hunger, health problems, and violence are some of the most common ways people living in poverty experience the nearness of death.

2. Poverty is not merely the lack of adequate financial resources. • It entails a more profound kind of deprivation, • A denial of full participation in the economic social, and political life of society • An inability to influence decisions that affect one’s life. • Cycle of Poverty: • In which the lack of basic resources creates barriers that prevent people from obtaining those resources. • Homelessness and hunger lead to an inadequate education for homeless children and • Reduced job opportunities • Poverty prevents people from developing their full potential • Prevents full development in two (2) ways: • Can lead to a worldview in which a better lifestyle seems impossible • People are denied the resources necessary for their full development

3. Hierarchy of human needs • Dr. Abraham Maslow • If basic needs to unmet, higher needs become more difficult to fill. • People need personal resources like self-esteem and a sense of safety if they are to have the best chance of escaping the cycle of poverty. • Catholic social teaching calls society to make the needs of its poorest and most vulnerable members a top concern. • The Church says this because it believes: • All people deserve fair access to the earth’s material resources, as well as the resources of the human community • So they can fully develop their own unique ways of loving God and others. • Poverty • 35 % of the nation’s poor people are youth under the age of 18.

4. Chronic Hunger: • Not enough food to give body nutrients • Starvation: • Not enough calories to maintain the body • Metabolism slows down and body begins to feed on itself • School in poor areas receive less funding, not funded appropriately • Two trends that make it difficult to afford basic resources: • Food and housing • 1. Low Income • 2. Cost of basic necessities has increased • A Good education is a one of the best ways to break the cycle of poverty • We reach our full potential through education • True Homes: • Safe places where human dignity is respected • Hidden Homeless: • People who’s poverty prevents them from living in true homes

5. Inadequate hosing • Living in others’ housing • Unsafe housing • NAACP suggests the problem with education in poor areas is rooted in a range of various problems outside of funding. • Housing • Transportation • Education policies • Affordable housing shortage • As more people work for less money, the need for low-cost housing increases. • All poverty limits the ability of people to develop their potential • More than one half of the world’s population lives on less than $2 a day • One fifth of the world’s population lives on less than a $1 a day • In developing countries:

6. 1.8 million children die annually because of unsanitary drinking water. • World wide, more than 1 billion people do not have access to food and water they need. • In the US people face hunger, homelessness and a lack of access to education • People migrate to large cities in search of jobs • Those who can’t find jobs often end up on the street • Many of the world’s homeless people are refugees: • People displaced by wars or political persecution • Ethnic Cleansing: • Victims of intentional attempts to displace specific ethnic groups • Inadequate Education • Education lifts young people out of poverty • Around the world 114 million children do not receive a basic education

7. There is enough food currently grown worldwide to supply everyone in the world with 3,600 calories a day. • European nations set up systems designed to extract the human natural resources of land for themselves while undermining the local economics and people. • Main goal of colonization: • To enrich European powers • As a result of colonization Europe and the U.S. grew more powerful while the majority of the world’s people who lived in the colonies grew weaker. • Resource extraction: • Many poor countries try to help their weak economies by exporting cash crops established when they were colonies. • Multinational corporations based in developed counties extract $43 billon from poor ones in cash crops, natural resources and labor

8. Government by the elite: • Government policies tend to favor the interests of the wealthy rather than the poor. • Foreign aid problems • Wealthy nations offer small amounts of aide to the world’s poorest nations. • Discrimination: • Ethnic, religious, and gender discrimination within poor countries also causes poverty.