Childhood poverty

While exploring childhood poverty website I discovered that there are many efforts in researching the effects of poverty on children all over the world.  Organizations are researching how poverty impacts the nation as a whole and each country.  The website offers many articles that discuss the efforts it will take to combat poverty in different countries.  They try to define for investors and other policy makers the importance of funding for families in poverty and ways they can combat the issues.  The goal is to break the cycle of poverty so that children and families will have a better chance living a more fulfilling life. 

This website introduces Nan Nan who is a migrant child in China.  She moved from a rural farm to a small city.  It discusses the discrimination that she faces when going to the new school because she is older than the children in her class.  She feels that the children nor the teacher respect her.  Her mother experiences discrimination as well while she is out working.  They moved to have a better life and so their children will have a better education. Unfortunately, they are barely making ends meet and the experiences they are facing seem to be causing more harm than good.  The father has to stay on his job and they only see him once a month. 

This particular story leaves me feeling very discouraged that there is so little understanding or respect for children from different backgrounds even in other countries.  It also opened my eyes to the fact that discrimination for children in poverty stricken situations is not just isolated to the United States.  It's not that I was not aware of the discrimination in other countries but to have it personalized from the child's point of view had a serious impact on me.  As a nation, issues of poverty need to be addressed for children and families.  Policy makers need to make more of an effort to put policies in place to protect children from situations like this.  There is so much research that supports how poverty impacts families, there needs to be more attention paid to what the research is saying.