Students feel the pinch of poverty

from the Arbiter Online

JACQUELINE WAYMENT

The Volunteer Services Board at Boise State University is presenting Poverty Week, Nov. 12-16.

"The goal of VSB is to raise awareness on campus and in the community about poverty and to provide students with an opportunity to get involved," Poverty Issues Coordinator for VSB Blair Davidson said.

Four different events on various topics highlight the week, ranging from human trafficking to finding ways to help impoverished villages in Honduras access clean water.

Monday's presentation featured a documentary on uncovering the truth about human trafficking and how it stems from impoverished countries.

Students simulated what the distribution of wealth looks like in the world Tuesday. At the Hunger Banquet, students were split up into three different groups as they arrived: the high-income group sat at tables that had dishes and table cloths, the middle-income group sat at empty tables and the low-income group sat on cardboard on the floor.

Dr. Said Ahmed-Zaid, associate professor of electrical and computer engineering, gave a presentation to help students understand how everyone is connected in the world, and how people in impoverished parts of the world live. He gave some basic facts and descriptions of each of the income groups.

To depict how each group lives, Dr. Ahmed-Zaid described different situations people find themselves in, causing them to move between the income groups.

The most vivid example included all of the income levels and showed how the global economy affects everyone.

Afterward, students watched a video produced by Oxfam, a company that is "committed to creating last solutions to global poverty, hunger, and social injustice." Students were able to see how simple, innovative solutions helped impoverished people become self-sufficient. Students then ate food according to their income groups. The rich were served a full dinner on dishes, the middle income ate from a buffet table on paper plates, and the poor ate a small plate of rice and beans. This gave students a tangible idea of how inequality in distribution of resources affects people's lives.

While students were eating, Professor Martin Orr, chair of the Sociology Department, gave a speech. He discussed how poverty is an economic, political and moral problem. The crux of his argument was that policies of imperialism, colonialism and globalization were perpetuated by design. The VSB wanted to provide students an opportunity to experience economic inequality in the world. They achieved their goal.

A company owner with a high income was purchasing coffee at a very low market price. This in turn caused the middle-income farmer who grew the coffee to fire his workers. The workers lost their jobs, reducing the amount of money they could spend, causing the low-income laborer to starve.