Poverty Around the Globe

Case 1: Poverty in the US
I remember when I was in Boston, my dad used to drive my family around the city. At almost every single red light, a homeless person would take a tin can and walk down the line of cars begging for money. It's just sad.......We wanted to help them, but how?? If we opened the window and gave them some money, they might rob us. We all felt insecure around them, sometimes they even tried to open people's car's doors.

Case 2: Poverty in China.
Recently, there was a news report regarding wrong use of the term 'AIDS'. Some people were pretending they had AIDS and threatened motorists with a needle dipped in blood. This is a horrible situation, would you pay money or would you rather wanna get pricked with blood from an AIDS patient? If you didn't pay, you might get AIDS (if the claim was true). People everywhere would call the police, but the police couldn't do anything. They couldn't verify if they really had AIDS, so they were off the hook every time.

Case 3: Poverty in Hong Kong
Hong Kong, a world class city. Are there any homeless people here? Yes, but fewer than most other cities. The government here uses a number of tactics to prevent homeless people from gathering on the streets. First up, they've replaced nearly ALL public benches with new ones designed to prevent a homeless person from sleeping there.

Second, it makes lots of laws and regulations which prohibit homeless people from staying in a few public places (e.g. inside on MTR Stations). Finally, it adds a lot of homeless shelters (though not enough) to handle the homeless.

Still, poverty is still quite serious with many people just taking free newspapers not for the purpose of reading, but for recycling. At the entrance of one MTR station near me, the elderly take english newspapers, though they don't know how to read them, purely for the purpose of recycling. Many people here (over 80% elderly) go through dumpsters and collect paper for one again, recycling. It's great for the environment (reducing waste), but also really depressing.

More about Hong Kong poverty here (Youtube):

Poverty in Hong Kong [Part 1]
Poverty in Hong Kong [Part 2]
Poverty in Hong Kong [Part 3]

For our participation in last year's blog action day, please refer to this post