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Poverty Close to Home
by ANNA President Sandra Bodin
“My
friend,” said Mr. Pickwick, “you don’t really mean to say that human
beings live down in those wretched dungeons?” (The Pickwick Papers,
1837)
Last
spring, I discovered that The Council of Science Editors was organizing
a Global Theme Issue on Poverty and Human Development for October 2007.
Science journals throughout the world, from developed and developing
countries, simultaneously have published papers on this topic to raise
awareness, stimulate interest, and stimulate research into poverty and
human development. As of September, 233 journals, including the
Nephrology Nursing Journal, agreed to participate in this project
(Council of Science Editors, 2007).
Once I realized that this issue of the Nephrology Nursing Journal was
joining hundreds of journals from around the globe to focus attention
on worldwide poverty, I began to consider how I could incorporate this
topic into my President’s message. Initially, I studied the globe
sitting in my living room. Should I focus on poverty on a far-off
continent where AIDS is wiping out generations of people? Perhaps it
would be better to describe the poor people living in an exotic country
still dealing with a devastating earthquake. Maybe I should instead
write about homeless people in another state in my own country, trying
to recover from a destructive hurricane. The choice of people and
places seemed almost endless.
Just Look Around the Corner
Subsequently
I attended a meeting of my Bridgeview Drive Book club, where all the
members conveniently live on the same street as I do. We were
discussing Betty Smith’s classic novel A Tree Grows in Brooklyn, about
a young girl growing up in poverty during the turn of the 20th century
(Smith, 1943). Three of my neighbors are exceptional elementary school
teachers. During the discussion, one of the teachers who happens to
teach at the elementary school in our own neighborhood, mentioned that
she is not able to let the students in her class go outside for recess
during the colder months of the year because so many of the children do
not have mittens to wear. I shook my head in disbelief and asked what
is wrong with those parents, sending their children to school without
mittens? After all, when you live on the shore of Lake Superior;
mittens, hats and boots are considered necessities for survival.
Frostbite and hypothermia are constant concerns during the winter
months. In order to prevent these injuries, fingers, ears and feet need
the added protection. My friend informed me that I had misinterpreted
the issue; the reason that the children do not have any mittens to wear
is not parental neglect, their families simply cannot afford to buy
them. I was stunned. I never realized that I had neighbors that could
not afford mittens for their children.
What was most upsetting to me was not the fact that these children had
no mittens, but that I had never even recognized this problem existed
in my own back yard. Was I that blind to poverty in my own
neighborhood? Could I really be as clueless as Mr. Pickwick, my
favorite Dickens character (Dickens, 1837)? I was determined to uncover
more information. What I discovered is that education, housing,
healthcare, and childcare are the issues most often linked with poverty.
According to the U.S. Census Bureau, over 31% of the residents in my
community struggle to earn enough money just to pay for basic needs
such as food, clothing and housing. Meanwhile, 13.6% are considered to
be living in poverty. Here was another revelation for me: only two
other counties in my state had a higher percentage of citizens living
in poverty. In addition, 76% of people living without health insurance
are actually employed (U.S. Census Bureau, 2007). These statistics are
appalling and unacceptable. While concern over mittens may not compare
to hunger and homelessness, none of us need to look very far to see
that poverty exists in our world.
Global Theme Issue Raises Awareness
When
you think about it, the Global Theme Issue on Poverty and Human
Development project is already successful at reaching the objectives of
raising awareness and stimulating interest in human poverty. It seems a
bit ironic though, that the first person to have their awareness raised
because of this message is me.
Sandra Bodin, MA, RN, CNN
ANNA President
References
Dickens, C. (1837). The Pickwick papers: Chapter 41. London: Chapman & Hall.
Council of Science Editors. (2007). Retrieved September 30, 2007, from http://www.councilscienceeditors.org/globalthemeissue.
cfm.
Smith, B. (1943). A tree grows in Brooklyn. New York: Harper & Brothers.
U.S. Census Bureau. (2007). Income, poverty, and health insurance coverage in the United States: 2006. Washington, DC: Author.
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