As a uni student (especially one who has come from the full time work force) it is so easy to proclaim that you are poor or you are broke... with the cost of living rising, what my meagre income could purchase at the beginning of this year will buy me less now. When friends are buying houses, funding weddings, purchasing boats and you are trying to toss up between going out this weekend and finally replacing that pair of pants that are close to death, it's easy to whinge.Then you meet with some people that have been administering aid in Nigeria. They tell you a tale of a family haunted by the evils of HIV. A husband made "redundant" from his job that is the only income for his family... his five-year-struggle to get the pay out from the company in which he showed up to the headquarters every day. How their mud floor of their house would get unbelievably muddy whenever it rains and how grateful they were when a donation paid for a concrete floor in the house - that they considered they were living in luxury because they no longer had to wallow in ankle deep mud in wet weather.
This couple then went on to tell me about their children who are currently working in Amsterdam, one of the hubs of human trafficking due to the large sex trade there. They opened my eyes to the fact that there are currently more people in bonded labour (human trafficking and the slave trade in some eastern countries) then there were prior to the emancipation of African slaves in America. These people, often working in brothels or other sub-humane conditions, truly do live in poverty. They own nothing - even the clothing on their backs is not theirs to call their own- and they live in a cycle of fear and recrimination, unable to escape.
I'm living in poverty? Yeah right!
Give: Purchased a "Love Your Body" t-shirt to support EDEN - a network to support those with eating disorders.
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