EVERY
WHERE
By Oscar Traid
Poverty is everywhere, in the streets of every single city, in all the states and in all the countries. However, when we talk about poverty, we mainly refer to countries from Africa, as they are the ones which are more undeveloped and the ones with lack of money, electricity, water, education, food, dwellings… All of us tend to see our good things from our cities and we turn the blind eye from what we do not want to see.
Just one picture is enough to make us realize that poverty is not as far as we think and that is always in front of us. Although we think it is impossible that in the cities where we live with plenty of good conditions, there is always somebody who do not have these conditions and they live in scarcity. In the photo, an old poor woman is walking through a zebra crossing meanwhile a huge number of cars are waiting for the traffic light to turn green. This is not a simple photo, as that woman is dressing with no shirt, trousers, or shoes like all of us would do. She is dressing with plenty of plastic bags, an unusual image which shows her level poverty and few resources.
She is pushing at the same moment a baby cart, but instead of using it to go with a baby, she is using it to transport her objects from one side to another. Maybe, all these objects are the only ones that she uses to live and that she had found by searching rubbish, objects that the richest ones had thrown, and the poor ones use as the most appreciated things. It is not necessary to see his face to figure out how she is feeling, because with just a photo we can discover many things. She is exhausted for walking and walking without a fixed destination, she is feeling alone because I supposed that she has not got family, she is hungry as she does not have money for buying at least a sandwich, … And like this are feeling more people in every single site in the world. On the background, many cars are waiting her to pass and the traffic light to turn green, for then continuing their lives without mattering that situation that they have lived on this day and where many of them haven’t realized the situation of the poor woman. Cars symbolise the rich ones and the old poor woman the poverty. An inequality situation between both, where despite living in the same city, the most part live in good conditions and a small part without resources. These ones are ignored and hidden by the shadows of the huge skyscrapers and the richness in itself.
Poverty is not something of another world, and it is not as much far as we think due to it’s just run the corner of our streets. Many of us try to hide and ignore poverty from the other ones, but this is simply the opposite of what we should do. The only way to face poverty is by confronting and opening our eyes with the true reality and show to all of us what we have been hiding, simply the invisible ones.
