Getting to Know Your International Contacts-Part 1

Unfortunately, I have had the worsts luck with making contact with any international professionals. I received a reply email stating that there was an enormous amount of emails from Walden students and they could not help me. Then the person emailed me back with a colleagues information and I tried contacting that individual and still have not received any feedback.

I decided to visit the childhoodpoverty.org and research the country of India. I read a story about a 17 year old boy named Banwari. Banwari is a very smart young man who had to stop attending his education due to his fathers illness and the cost of his education. Banwari reached a very high level of education but could not continue. He dropped from school and began his journey of helping to provide for his family. Banwari was born into a poor family who did not earn very much wages in a days work. He was 1 child of 6 brother and a family of 10. When Banwari dropped out of school, he decided that he wanted to take up carpet weaving. He trained for the first year and then got his first job as a carpet weaver. Banwari says that carpet weaving is a very long and tiresome job. He says that he sits on the loom for 8 hours a day with a 1 hour rest period. His daily pay rate is Rs 45-50. Banwari said that normally it takes up to 3 months to complete a carpet. With the uncomfortable sitting on the loom, 2 months is a long time and hard on his body. He says that one day he would like to seek a better job. one day Banwari wants to return to school some day so that he can earn better wages.

After reading about Banwari, it made me thin about how there are many children who give up their schooling to provide for their families. This is exactly what Banwari did. He made a sacrifice for his family. I understand that young men like Banwari is old enough to help their families but their education should not become compromised.
I viewed a couple of younger children in India to see what types of works or labor they are apart of and I was pretty awed. There was a picture of a very young girl who was selling ice cream. The child appeared to be only 4 or 5 years old. How could she know and understand the business of selling ice cream. Another were pictures of children fetching water, grazing cattle, childminding (babysitting), embroidery, and many other chores or works for young children. There was one picture of a child playing in muddy water in the middle of the road. I thought about how clean the water was that she was playing with sand then how safe was it for her to play in the middle of the road. I did not see any adults supervising her.

I have learned that poverty has its different degrees depending on the country. What I do know and understand is that poverty very much does exist and there are very loving and generous individual who are making great efforts at  curtailing poverty.