A few weeks ago I came across an article on the Guardian website on
blogger A Girl Called Jack. Fascinated, I read through the near entirety of her
blog and immediately signed up to her Facebook page.
Fascinated – yes, impressed – even more so, after being plunged into
poverty, of having to feed her two-year old son Weetabix with water, Jack not
only shared her experience of feeding two people on ten pounds a week but also now
uses her fame to campaign against poverty.
One of her commenters commends her on her courage for battling “Asituation which is by no means unique but shared by too many people of this
planet.”
Vulnerability, not only a concept that much of Europe has
rediscovered in its economic crises but one that shadows much of the economic
progress that’s being made in the Third World, with Zambia being an example.
In Greece, UK and Spain it was taken for granted that one gets a
job, enjoys the benefits of personal finances such as owning a car, being a
homeowner, travelling and eventually retires with a pension to see you through
until your demise. However, in a brief period this has proven to be a fallacy.
In Zambia we speak of a growing middle class. Neither rich nor poor,
the middle class own cars, take holidays and shopping trips to nearby
countries, do Sunday lunches at game lodges, play video games and watch 3D
cinema.
However, Zambia lacks social security. The loss or illness of a main
breadwinner, divorce or unemployment can spell the end of the middle class dream
and the beginning of poverty. Retirement benefits are usually a relatively large
but once-off payment which, if squandered or spent on something significant,
say medical expenses, is gone. Furthermore, education and medical care cost
money, public transport is privately owned and formal employment is the
privilege of a minority of the population.
There are always those who can pull themselves out of the quagmire
but as Jack says of herself “I almost have my happy ending. Almost. But
hundreds of thousands of families in Britain are starving – and they don’t get
a book deal, and they don’t get to roll onto the Sky News sofa and shout at
politicians about how it is.”