By guest author Charikleia Tsatsaroni.jpg "Begging")
Mahatma Gandhi said, “Poverty is the worst violence.” Poverty is also a terrorist.
Poverty means threats of or actual loss of jobs, loss of pensions, loss of one’s home, loss of hope. It means living under the heavy shadow of a big national financial debt, constantly terrorized by the risk that your country will be bankrupted, fearful of reprisals if you protest austerity programs that bring no relief to poverty. After three years of austerity in Greece, freedom from such terror feels unattainable.
All these violent expressions of poverty can have serious consequences to people’s health and psychological well-being. For example, currently the Greek health care and education systems lack adequate materials and personnel, and have become more difficult to access, as well as less egalitarian. Unemployment has reached record-breaking rates.
Greek people seem increasingly distrustful. Such social distrust can sometimes take the form of violent social conflicts. For instance, racist attacks on immigrants and refugees are more common since the financial crisis, because some people consider immigrant groups and refugees to be the cause of unemployment in Greece. Also, for the first time since 1950, the infant mortality rates went up in 2012, as well as suicide rates and psychological problems (e.g., stress, panic attacks).
Poverty is a nearly global problem hurting individuals and communities well beyond the borders of my own country. For decades, many organizations around the world have tried to deal with it. Do they work together or compete or undermine each other? Where do their interests lie–with ordinary people or the power elites?
What can ordinary people do to stop this form of violence? Are there effective ways to help? Are there peaceful ways to protest against poverty and the terror it produces?
I have sought answers and inspiration in different places such as the thought-provoking films from the project “Why poverty?” that aim to inspire people to ask questions about poverty, become part of the solution, and bring positive change. More significantly, I try to remain mindful and engaged.
Charikleia Tsatsaroni, MSc., EdM., from Greece, is the former head of the Department of Human Resource Training and Development of the Greek Organization Against Drugs (OKANA), and is a member of GIPGAP.