Challenging the notions of poverty in the midst of a pandemic

People always, or in most cases, tend to blame the individual for his/her socio-economic status and behaviour (teen pregnancy, crime).

This is the common Western view of poverty – the individualistic view.

But when millions are trapped within this cycle of poverty in a country such as ours ??, then we have to abandon the individualistic view of poverty. We cannot just blame the individual. It’s a broader and deeper structural dynamic.

Poverty is structural – often referred to as structural poverty.

Structural factors contributed to this mass manifestation of poverty. The legacy of apartheid, lack of economic growth, structural holes in the economic policy, government corruption, lack of economic opportunities, failed school system leading to high literacy, are all stacked up as the grim factors that we need to keep in mind before blurting out a barrage of blame.

Let’s not fall into the trap of blaming individuals and forget about the structure or system that creates poverty.

We need a structural overhaul of the above-mentioned in order to create a broad-based emancipation plan to move people out of poverty.

I’m inspired by the work of Muhammed Yunus from Bangladesh who developed a broad-based grassroots concept such as the Grameen Bank to reduce poverty in Bangladesh.

For too long have we been trained in this “individualistic view of poverty” and it brought us nowhere – actually more deeper levels of poverty.

For instance, Hunger and access to food is a systemic and structural issue. We cannot label people for being lazy when millions stand in the food distribution queues while we live in a food secured country.

We need a broad-based and systemic intervention to deal with the scourge of poverty and hunger in this country.