The documentary “Poor Kids”, it shows the story of the lives of three families who struggle to make ends meet every day. These families lack the resources such as money to buy food and other every day necessities, pay for the rent, and the parents not having a job or not having an unstable employment. I felt heavy hearted after watching this documentary because I can imagine myself in their situation. I feel blessed that I did not have to go through what these families are going through. It is hard to imagine how it feels like to have no money or little money to buy food, clothes and other things, pay the utilities, not having a decent place to live, moving from one motel to another, and not having a stable to job to support the family.
As mentioned by Ruane and Cerulo in Second Thoughts, harsh realities of poverty affect children’s lives in profound ways. Children lack any power in improving their circumstances and depend on adults to gain access to basic necessities. Access to proper healthcare, education, and basic nutrition continues to be an obstacle for children. Poverty impedes children’s aptitude to learn and contributes to poor overall health and mental health. Perhaps most important, poverty becomes a cyclical nature that is difficult to overcome. Children who experience poverty when they are young tend to experience persistent poverty over the course of their entire lives. According to the Child Welfare League of America, the national poverty rate for children
The last part of the video shows the lost boys being re-united with their family. This is probably the most heartwarming part of the documentary. Back in Africa, children are shown singing songs upon one of their arrival. One of the lost boys shares a picture of a woman who was chosen for him to marry. The aftermath of the film shares their upcoming success upon moving to the United States. This shows different cultures can be adapted no matter how different they are from each
The Toronto Star published an article reporting that Toronto currently has the highest rate of children living in households that are considered low income in Canada (Monsebraaten, 2015). The article reports that in Toronto the child poverty rate is higher than the poverty rate of any other age group. This paper will discuss child poverty, how this is a challenge to public health practices and policies, and finally, discuss potential solutions for public policy that address this issue.
In the 2012 documentary Poor Kids, children living in the Quad Cities reflect on their lives in poverty. Each story is different but similar in many ways. At the time of the film, there were sixteen million children reported who were affected by poverty. The film also stated that one in five children were living in poverty. With large quantities of children being affected by poverty, the important to understand how these children are dealing with the factors of poverty.
Prior to watching the documentary Second Chance Kids, I did not realize the amount of juveniles sentenced to life in prison without parole. The statistics throughout the documentary were shocking. For example, across the country, there are more than two thousand people convicted of murder as juveniles and sentenced to mandatory life in prison without the possibility of parole (Dornstein, 2017).
In the documentary “Poor Kids” you get to truly see and feel how it is to be a child that suffers from food insecurity, poverty and the rest that comes with it. The fact that this problem exists in a developed country that you would assume it could provide for all their citizens. Well, the reality is we have many families suffering because of lack food and on top of that, we have children suffering from lack and food and more. As a society, we have grown to just be concerned about ourselves and we don’t focus on issues that affect others. We fail to see the struggles of others because it doesn’t directly impact us. We are focused on attaining wealth at all cost we would rather waste food than provide help for the ones in need. Ultimately, we are creating policies that, make sure no one gives food to the ones that needed the most. It’s a sad reality that we must face in order to continue to strive as a nation. Therefore, we need to acknowledge others and provide them with the respect that they deserve. We also have many corporations and elites that have control, power, and wealth. The stratified system in the U.S is making it that much harder for lower-income families to come out of poverty. Not only are they suffering from lack of food, lack income, and resources, but this also is affecting their pride and self-worth.
I really enjoyed this documentary because it made me realize just how lucky I am for the life I was given. It changed my perception of happiness in so many ways. It made me realize that I have more than I need to live a happy life. Other people around the world don’t have as nice of a house or even a house at all to live in and are so much happier than I am and that is something that sparked my attention. For example, the man who lives in India, Manoj Singh, he lives in what looks like poverty to me, but to him, he lives well. There are times where his family are only able to eat rice and he has no air conditioning in his home, but he still remains a very happy man. When he mentioned that there are times where his family only eats rice, it instantly made me feel awful because I have all the food in the world around me and I still take it for granted some days. I also take my family for granted at times. For instance, the man from Louisiana, his family and friends are what make him happy the most. He is simply grateful for them while
The following week, we spent most of our time in the poorest parts of the city. There we went door-to-door sharing the love of God and had Vacation Bible Schools for the kids. This is when I realized how blessed I truly was. For the first time, I got to see the privations and penury environment that the citizens of Third World countries had to endure. The unpaved streets were covered in trash. Many houses, made of tin sheets, had collapsed on themselves. The people had to share wells, where they drew their parasitic water. Men, women, and children sat on the sides of the roads begging for money, because they were sick, hungry, and needed money for food and proper medication. The site of these atrocious states of living broke my heart, and showed me how blessed I really was for not having to face these problems.
There are No Children Here, by Alex Kotlowitz, tells a story about the family of LaJoe and Paul Rivers. The book focuses on Lafayette and Pharaoh, two of the younger children in the family, and their interactions with each other, the neighborhood, their family, their friends, and the police. Following the family over three years shows the importance of neighborhood factors when it comes to crime. According to Sampson and Groves (1989), social disorganization refers to “the inability of a community structure to realize the common values of its residents and maintain effective social controls”. Many aspects in the book exemplify how neighborhood factors, social controls, and community factors have impacts on crime. The book exemplifies how neighborhood disadvantage can lead to informal social controls, which in turn produces crime. Due to these factors, social disorganization is the best theory to explain the crime that occurs in There are No Children Here.
In the documentary “Poor Kids”, Frontline explores childhood poverty from the eyes of the children that are enduring the epidemic. Through interviews and observations, the children from these poor families tell their stories uncandid, honest and in their own words. The outcome is remarkably discerning, by taking viewers into their livelihoods and day to day experiences, and displaying their unfortunate lack of resources and hope. Every single day, huge numbers of American families get pulled out of the middle class and dumped into poverty. The amount of reliable, secure jobs continues to shrink, and families don’t have any way to pay their bills, causing them to lose electricity, water, and even their homes.
When analyzing children growing up in poverty a lot of factors come into play such as their physical, psychological and emotional development. To grow up in poverty can have long term effect on a child. What should be emphasized in analyzing the effects of poverty on children is how it has caused many children around the world to suffer from physical disorders, malnutrition, and even diminishes their capacities to function in society. Poverty has played a major role in the functioning of families and the level of social and emotional competency that children are able to reach. Children in poverty stricken families are exposed to greater and emotional risks and stress level factors. They are even capable of understanding and dealing with
Children from the Victorian society suffered from this kind of oppression. Children belonging to the lower classes were forced to work, uneducated, and perhaps unaware while upper class children were bound by sex for the rest of their lives. Males were sent to school for their future profession while females were taught about the Victorian household. The two classes are pretty much the same. Working class children lacked education and money while upper class children lacked family time and they have to live a very monotonous life, having been assigned the same tasks every day. Children from both classes were under the control of age, sex, and class, having no power to choose for themselves (Frost, 2008).
We as Americans are extremely lucky. We live in a big country with many resources and almost all the luxuries we ever wanted. On the flip side, in America there are also many people who do not have these privileges. The lower class is a struggling class. For many years, people have been trying to pull themselves up from the lower class and the majority does not succeed. Childhood poverty is a large problem in the U.S. It is said that the poorest people in the United States are the children of the lower class. Childhood poverty could lead to a number of problems such as hunger, violence, physical and mental disabilities, educational problems, homelessness, family stress, sickness, and too-early parenthood. The sad truth is that
It really left me in awe. I could not believe what I was hearing and really felt bad for the family. This eleven year old boy suffers from the worst kind of Cerebral Palsy. He has been hospitalized about eight time in the last two months. He is medically fragile and on top of all that his mom goes through depression. Not only does she have to care for a kid with a severe condition in Cerebral Palsy, she also lost her husband in a war. He was murdered for sympathizing with the opposition. To add more unfortunate in the mother’s life, she was also sexually abused by her nurse who helps take care of her child. Like I said, I was really shocked and very intrigued to meet this patient and his mother. The doctor also told me that the boy has suffered from an arrest at home and in the hospital. She believes it’s because the mother is not giving the boy the right amount of dosage. The language barrier could have played a role, but it’s not for sure. The state is also considering taking him away from the mother due to everything that is going on. There is a lot going on in the case and I could fully understand why the mother suffers from
The organization that I chose to analysis is the Save the Children Campaign. This organization relies heavily upon ethos and pathos to get support for their cause. This organization uses many means to get their point across to people. This organization uses the emotional appeal to their advantage and mostly they use this technique to get donations and volunteers. The use of credibility strategies has helped the organization also with receiving donations and getting people to volunteer. The mission of Save the Children is to create lasting, positive changes in the lives of children in need. Save the Children works to achieve this mission through community-based programs designed