Your bank account balance doesn’t reflect your worth, nor does the car you drive. Sadly, cheap stuff often earns you disdain. This is a poem about life in poverty.
Old Bangers and Mercs – Poem About Life

Your bank account balance doesn’t reflect your worth, nor does the car you drive. Sadly, cheap stuff often earns you disdain. This is a poem about life in poverty.
In the developing world, 1 in 9 girls is married before they reach the age of 15, while 1 in 3 girls marry before they’re 18. Groups campaigning for the abolition of child marriage like Girls Not Brides report that each year, 12 million girls worldwide marry before reaching 18.
Because of population size, Sub-Saharan and West African countries have the highest numbers of child marriage, however, child marriage is proportionally most common in South Asia.
Apart from child marriage traditions in certain areas of the world, poverty, gender inequality, and lack of education are the main causes. Parents in poor societies arrange marriages for their daughters to reduce the number of mouths to feed as well as to gain from dowries. In addition, gender inequality is also prevalent, with girls not valued in the same way as boys.
According to the International Center for Research on Women, education also plays a significant role. In Mozambique, for example, nearly 60 percent of uneducated girls are forced into marriage, whereas only 10 percent of girls with secondary schooling marry before reaching 18.
Girls Not Brides further explains that in some places, parents arrange marriages for their daughters to protect them against harassment, physical and sexual assault.
Girls who are forced into marriage often suffer a severe curtailment of their human rights and freedoms. Deprived of basic rights like health care, education, and personal safety, these girls have little hope of living their lives freely or pursuing a career.
In addition, girls who marry before reaching 18 are much more likely to become victims of domestic violence. According a ICRW study conducted in two states in India, child brides are twice as likely to be threatened, beaten or slapped by their husbands.
The psychological effects of child marriage are also devastating with many girls suffering from feelings of hopelessness and despair, signs of post-traumatic stress syndrome and of sexual abuse. With regard to physical health, Girls Not Brides points out that girl brides are much more likely to suffer pregnancy and childbirth complications or to contract the HIV virus.
According the PEW Research Center, UN and US state department data on 198 countries and territories showed that child marriage is legal in 117.
Many charities are fighting to put an end to child marriage. According to figures published by UNICEF on 6 March 2018, numbers have been dropping by approximately 15 percent over the last decade. The greatest decline has been recorded in South Asia where figures dropped from 50 to 30 percent. Government action, better education along with public awareness campaigns into the ills of child marriage are believed to be the driving forces behind the drop.
Though the recently released figures show a drop in child marriage numbers, efforts will need to be redoubled to achieve the goal of ending child marriage by 2030.
The ceasefire in Syria has failed. The UN and US have accused Russia, the Syrian government, and Turkey of breaching it, making the delivery of humanitarian aid nigh impossible. Turkey has rejected the UN ceasefire resolution, its president saying:”God curse your resolution”, thus lamenting that the ceasefire excluded military action against some terrorist groups. To the Syrian civilians, such exchanges must sound inflated, self-righteous and utterly useless.
Sitting comfortably, inflated with self-importance, talking heads resolve to reign in warring factions.
Devoid of any sense of the suffering civilians endure like death, destruction, pain, fear, terror, and utter despair,
talking heads just talk, squabbling inconsequential nonsense.
Some supply arms to one warring faction, others to opposing forces.
Far, far removed from the tragedy of daily violence, starvation, and despair.
Peace as elusive and unobtainable as a reality check for these talking heads.
Like the child who’s lost mother, father, brothers, and sisters, home and all,
devoid of any hope of ever living the trivial life of a talking head.
If only the heavens conspired to rid the world of arms,
so that war can be no more.
In a 2015 study by Ben Fell and Miles Hewstone from the Joseph Rowntree Foundation, UK, what many, living in poverty or working in deprived areas, had suspected for a long time, was proven accurate. Poverty has a detrimental effect that goes far beyond lacking resources. So, to answer the question, “does poverty affect self-esteem?”: Yes, it does.
In fact, researchers concluded that those living in poverty also suffer in many other ways. Lack of self-esteem, feelings of personal failure, along with lack of self-confidence are just among some of the very serious issues facing those living in poverty.
Here’s a summary of the findings, providing a clear-cut answer to the question “does poverty affect self-esteem?”.
People have strong negative perceptions of people living in poverty, believing that this poverty results from personal failings. Stereotyping is common, even among policy-makers. When designing anti-poverty drives, these perceptions may well influence the approach.
Contact between communities of different socioeconomic backgrounds helps to build relationships. In addition, mixing communities works toward creating a better mutual understanding. Children, in particular, can benefit from mixing with kids from a variety of communities.
Negative perceptions compound the issues. In fact, they affect the way those living in poverty perceive themselves. In many cases, stereotypes lead to lower self-esteem and lack of self-confidence. What’s more, it makes educational and professional achievements more difficult to obtain.
The stress of living in poverty can trigger serious mental health issues including schizophrenia, depression, and substance abuse.
The study also suggests that children learn to cope with the strain of living in poverty at an early age. Though they are able to manage these stress levels, some go onto developing cancer and heart disease as a result.
Living in poverty creates a scarcity mindset and may rob individuals of the ability to plan for a better future. Because they can only provide for themselves from one day to the next and are constantly lacking financial resources, they lose their long-term perspective. This means that the scarcity mindset heightens and perpetuates the problems and issues surrounding the poverty.
Kids from deprived areas perform less well in many areas. They are less able to take on language tasks, make decisions, plan, and pay attention.
This makes for depressing reading. It seems, escaping the poverty trap is even more difficult than you’d imagine. If you think about it, it all makes perfect sense, though. If you’re poor, you’re consumed with worry, day by day, while you have to put up with the stereotypes. So how do you get out of the poverty trap?
Well, according to this study, each socioeconomic class should mix with another. Perhaps it’s up to those who have to reach out to those who don’t – leaving aside all the negative preconceptions.
According to a report from Aljazeera, 367 people were diagnosed with leprosy in 2016. Ostracized by their families, many of them make their way to the leper colony in Taiz to receive medical attention. But the war has hampered efforts of aid agencies, who struggle to distribute aid and provide adequate medical help. Among the people the Aljazeera reporters spoke to was 65-year-old Museed al-Firasi, who says: “I have nothing.” This is my poem for the lepers of Yemen.
You tell me that you have to walk for miles to get clean water, while I’m just after throwing out bottled water, just because it’s one day old.
You tell me that no one wants you, and I know that is true.
I don’t know what that feels like, to be sick and abandoned by loved ones. All the while, the war destroys your home. You’re right, you have nothing. But who cares? I just about care enough to write to you.
So there you are, no home, no family, no prospect of even a half-decent future. At least the staff and medical professionals working in Taiz care.
How do you cope? How do you find the strength to go and get water? How can you have faith in anyone, anything?
To say my heart goes out to you seems silly and only designed to ease my conscience. Still, it does try and reach you, and I wonder what your life could have been like if you had been born away from war and leprosy. But you didn’t.
After seeing your story, I looked up some facts about leprosy, though it’s hard to get away from the ingrained, idiot-ideas about this illness. According to the World Health Organisation, leprosy is treatable with antibiotics today and is caused by bacillus. But did you know it’s one of the least infectious diseases? Did you know that all the ancient humbug associated with leprosy that continues to ostracize sufferers is all nonsense? Did you know it’s just a bacillus like any other? I hope so, or maybe you’d be better off, not knowing.
Still, I’d like to know. Did you just get lesions on your skin? Or did the leprosy take parts of you? Disfigure you? Did you lose your feeling in your hands and feet? Did your hands and feet stop moving? I guess if you can still make your way to the well, the doctors must have stopped your leprosy before it destroyed your power of movement.
And what about your heart and soul? Losing family and friends? Being excluded, shunned, and ostracized? How do you cope? How do you find the strength to go and get water? How can you have faith in anyone, anything?
Do you rage against your God in disbelief at how suffering has all but destroyed your life? Do you still believe, hope, pray?
Do you rage against people like me who seem to care very little? Do you think of our inaction as inhumane? Callous? Selfish? Do you despair that only a handful of people have come to your aid, while the majority looks the other way?
Do you have peace within your heart, mind, soul – anywhere? How do you cope? How do you find the strength to go and get water? How can you have faith in anyone, anything?
My shame is of little use to you, my words and prayers perhaps a little. No doubt, the most useful thing for me to do for you is to call on people to support those who work in Taiz.
Still, my heart goes out to you as I picture you walking daily to collect the little water you can get.
If you’d like to make a donation, please use the following links:
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29 women protestors were arrested in Iran following anti-hijab demonstrations. Holding hijabs aloft on a stick to voice opposition against laws necessitating women to wear headscarves, hundreds of women had taken to the streets.
Though women in Iran have fought the hijab for many years, public protests as well as writing about this topic have not been allowed. In 1979, over 100’000 men and women took to the streets to protest against compulsory hijab wearing. But the laws remain unchanged. Failure to wear a headscarf is a criminal offence, punishable by fines and imprisonment.
Masih Alinejad, a self-exiled Iranian journalist living in the US since 2009, started an online campaign calling for the promotion of personal freedoms, including getting rid of the hijab-compulsion. Because of her outspoken views, she cannot return to Iran for fear of arrest, nor are her family allowed to visit her in the US.
Back in May 2017, she started the #WhiteWednesday campaign, calling on women so send in videos in support of the protests against headscarves. This campaign has garnered support from women all across the globe. Masih also runs the Facebook page “My Stealthy Freedom”. Today, she has over 1 million followers.
Iranian police said on Thursday that women were duped into taking off their headscarves by illegal satellite media sources promoting the #WhiteWednesdays campaign. This led to the arrest of 29 women only days after Vida Mohaved’s – who had been detained in December – release. Following protests, a video of Vida holding a white scarf aloft on a stick, her head not covered, had gone viral.
In recent months, Iranian authorities have not been as strict when enforcing hijab-laws. Whereas before women would be arrested for not wearing a headscarf while driving, such “offences” have lately only been punished with fines. However, observers believe that this has encouraged Iranian women to push for the removal of headscarf compulsion altogether.
No doubt, recent arrests are an attempt by the Iranian authorities to discourage other protesters and uphold the strict dress code regulations.
When your big toe is hurting, your whole body doesn’t feel right. Your brain soon gets the message, your eyes eager to take a look. Reasoning together, your brain, heart, and the entire aching body resolves, to help out the big toe.
Your entire being may even make time to go and see the doctor. All of who you are is intent on ensuring that your big toe gets the help and attention it needs. Other items on your list have to wait because getting your big toe better has become your top priority. This is because you know that if you don’t, you’ll end up with an infection which may force you to stay home from work. In that sense, your big toe’s welfare becomes the focus, even though all other parts of you are working fine.
If you now translate the story of your sore big toe to humanity as a whole, you’d have to embrace the same concept of collective responsibility. If the body of humanity is hurting in places, it’s the responsibility of the working parts to join and focus their efforts on improving the plight of the suffering parts.
Thus those living in peace and prosperity need to share the collective responsibility of healing those living in dire poverty or war. This means making the time to promote peace and fight inequality. Failure to do so hurts us all.
Today, the innocent often bear the brunt of the disastrous consequences of ignorant political and social decision making. Here’s a poem about bearing the brunt.
How come it is always the vulnerable and meek who bear the brunt of society’s woes? How come those in power don’t suffer the consequences of their bad decisions? Is it survival of the fittest at the most basic level?
In wars, civilians and kids die, loose limbs,
though they did not partake,
In financial crisis, social projects fall off,
though those who need them did not cause the money woes.
In oppression, through the abuse of power, the powerless bear the brunt,
though they did not contribute to any abuse.
On schoolyards and in work places, victims of bullies crumble,
though they did not look to be mobbed.
In homes, the abused struggle to survive,
though they were only seeking happiness.
In nature, fragile creatures break and die,
though they seek to live just as much as the robust.
In ourselves, we trample on our own fragility.
Seek to choke it out and inflate ourselves.
Flee from it, ignore it, and pretend it’s not ours.
Just so that we never bear the brunt or get the raw end.
In a different time and place, we could perhaps begin by honouring our fragility. Starting with our own vulnerability, placing it at the centre, we might then recognize the suffering of others.
Stand up for the defenseless,
the voiceless,
and the powerless.
Because we’re all but a tragedy away from disaster.
Here but for the grace of God.
As Christmas is approaching and we gear up to lavish each other with gifts and enjoy an abundance of food, my thoughts go to those less fortunate among us. This is my Christmas wish.
And I wish I could
Give shelter to all the homeless
Comfort the sad
Be with the lonely
Share my dinner with the starving
Calm those in mental distress
Hug those no one else does
Heal the sick
Give a drink of water to the kids who, at best, get dirty water
Protect the vulnerable from violence of any kind
I wish I could
get the haves to give to the don’t haves
get the powerful to listen to the unheard
get soldiers to lay down their arms
get the climate to be temperate around the world
I wish I could
stop turning away when I know someone is suffering
make time for someone in need
be kind when I don’t feel like it
keep my temper when I’m cross
I wish I could
get God to make everything alright in mere seconds
So, what am I to do?
I guess I’m just gonna have to keep trying to do what I can
and hope and pray that love will prevail