No Poverty

In 2015 the UN devised a plan made up of a collection of 17 global goals. This plan is known as 'Sustainable Development Goals' and they aim to have the plan fully operational by 2030.

I find it no surprise that on the top of this list is no poverty. During my time in Uganda during the summer I seen an obvious divide between the rich and the poor. The city of Kampala was built up and mostly modernised with coffee shops, big banks and sports shops. Then you went through the countryside and you saw very little shops, the shops you did see were very small, and the houses were generally no more than shacks or small basic houses simply containing four walls and a roof. The country suffers huge poverty and this is evident by the fact that there are security guards with guns at the door of small supermarkets and phone shops etc in the villages, you would not see that here in Ireland. Seeing this at first was a bit daunting but the ones we encountered regularly were so nice to us I soon felt comfortable around them. Places needed to take these security measures to prevent robberies. If you are poor and unable to feed your family sometimes the only choice you have in Uganda is rob the essentials.

In this day and age when we witness people with more money than they know what to do with it is hard to understand why there are still parts of the world were people struggle to feed their families. But we do not even have to look outside of our own countries to witness this kind of poverty. In Ireland we have people who are homeless or who have homes but who struggle to feed their families. Thank God for organisations who run soup kitchens and other initiatives in order to help ensure that people who cannot afford to feed themselves get fed. On an individual basis we can give to those who we see on the street begging or we can volunteer with organisations who run initiatives that feed people. But that is not enough. Here in Ireland we need our Government to step up and help to rid our country of poverty so that nobody finds themselves in a position where they are forced to sleep on the street or a hostel. We all have the right to have a place we can call home. We also all have the right to have enough food to live. It is hard to buy food without money, actually it is impossible. Prices of everything from the basics to rent and houses are going up but people's wages are not. What are our Government doing to combat this? Do we need to lobby them in order to make them act?  I know I for one will be looking at what our Government are doing for the Irish people!

On a Global level riding the world of poverty might be a bit more tricky. However, the UN have a plan in place, this plan has been devised almost 4 years, are they acting on it? Can we look up to see if they are? If there is more they can be doing can we lobby them to encourage them to act? After all the Governments of 1st world countries have money to burn!! They need to start spending it on people who need it!