{"id":5617,"date":"2019-09-27T13:42:49","date_gmt":"2019-09-27T10:42:49","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/africasustainabilitymatters.com\/?p=5617"},"modified":"2026-01-11T05:30:34","modified_gmt":"2026-01-11T05:30:34","slug":"piecing-the-poverty-puzzle","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/2019\/09\/27\/piecing-the-poverty-puzzle\/","title":{"rendered":"Piecing The Poverty Puzzle"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Albert Einstein once\nsaid everybody is a genius but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a\ntree, it will live its whole life believing that it is stupid. <\/strong><\/p>\n\n\n\n

In\na small ram-shackled village of Wundanyi in Nigeria, Ethiopia, Zimbabwe, and\nUganda lives Musa \u2013 The Carpenter. Coming from a long lineage of poverty, Musa\nhas never had a chance to sit in a nice and neat row of a classroom. After\nyears of languishing in poverty, Musa decides to utilize his carpentry skills\nwhich he learned from a former prominent carpenter. However, due to illiteracy,\nhis status quo in society has remained the same. Musa is not alone, the same\nstory is shared by Rafik, Omondi, Kpelle, and Yuran in Morocco, Kenya, Liberia,\nand Mozambique. They represent a majority of Africans living on less than 1.25\ndollar per day. But its more than just numbers. They have been denied basic\nfreedom and human dignity and forced to make impossible choices daily between\nfood, medicine, housing, and education. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Africa\nranks among the bottom quantile economies in the world with poverty being a\nmajor contributor. In the outlook grimmer of Sub-Saharan Africa, poverty levels\nare steadily increasing from 278 million in 1990 to 413 million in 2015.\nIlliteracy has been at the top of the poverty food chain where nearly 60\npercent of 20-24 \u2013year-olds from the poorest of the population have had less\nthan four years of learning.  <\/p>\n\n\n\n

The\nworld of illiterate and poverty-ridden people is like a vast endless desert\nwhere literacy is like an oasis of fertile land with freshwater flowing and\nmajestic palm trees growing. Illiteracy keeps people chained to ignorance and\nsuperstition. It is an obstacle in the path of civilization and development.\nWith literacy comes awareness and awareness brings progress, culture exchange,\nand civilization. On the other hand, illiteracy brings ignorance which leads to\nextreme poverty cases. To change this narrative, Africa needs to redefine its\napproach to learning. More emphasis should be placed on skill development as a\nmeans of promoting growth and economic transformation.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

\"\"
The future needs to be empowered with skills and training that can help sustain their lives Photo by Borgen magazine<\/figcaption><\/figure>\n\n\n\n

Africa\nneeds to embrace comprehensive programs that provide both skills and training,\nmentorship programs and financial support for the likes of Musa. This will\nempower them to be more efficient and expose them to more opportunities\nsignificantly reducing unemployment, raise incomes and improve the standard of\nliving hence changing their status quo. Development of specific skills and\ncapabilities enable an individual to function effectively in the competitive\nworld of work. <\/p>\n\n\n\n

Musa\nhas been chained to the rhythm of illiteracy which denies him the knowledge\nneeded to alleviate him from the small ram-shackled village. If vocational\ntraining is to make a difference the government needs to invest in these\ninstitutes at the grass-root level like Wundanyi where Musa can easily access.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

With\nthe Africa youth population expected to grow by 42.5 million by 2020, according\nto the world bank, over 470 million jobs will be needed globally in the labor\nforce by 2030- hence the need of African governments to develop key skills like\ncarpentry for Musa to drive economic growth and reduce the poverty gap. By\nproviding quality skill sets to young African youths like Musa, one that meets\nhis needs of today, we can ensure a brighter future for him and his family\nwhile closing the poverty gap among many other families. It will take a strong\npolitical will by governments to ensure this is achieved. Policies surrounding\nthe school structure and curriculum should be reviewed.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

By\ndoing this, we will lift one billion more people out of poverty in a\ngeneration.  <\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Albert Einstein once said everybody is a genius but if you judge a fish by its ability to climb a tree, it will live its whole life believing that it…<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":5619,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"content-type":"","pagelayer_contact_templates":[],"_pagelayer_content":"","_lmt_disableupdate":"","_lmt_disable":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[111],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-5617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-social-responsibility"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=5617"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/5617\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/5619"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=5617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=5617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rayscohosting.best\/ASM\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=5617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}