Getting to know your International Contacts-Part 1

Unfortunately, I did not hear from my contacts in Australia/New Zealand.  I am disappointed as I looked forward to learning about child care issues and trends in both places.  However, I did hear from two of my other contacts.
Betty is a friend and colleague of a work colleague.  She offered a personal perspective on poverty as well as another perspective via one of her students who lived in poverty.  Betty states that the issue of growing up in poverty keeps repeating itself in various forms for her.  She thinks that "poverty limits people's choices.  Something is always going wrong, and only limited solutions are available.  This greatly reduces parents' availability to their young children-to play with them, talk with them, take them places, have energy for them, love them" (Betty, 2011).  Her statements make me think about the readings from class as well as the presentation from Dr. Grace. 
Betty sent along some thoughts from a student of hers regarding poverty.  This particular student lived in poverty.  The following statement spoke to me.  "Poverty is like a huge deep dark pit, a dark bottomless hole" (Ann, 2010).  Ann speaks about how the support of caring people helped her to climb out of the dark pit.  She refers to the support of others as "hands of hope" (Ann, 2010).  When my husband was laid off (high tech), we struggled for a year.  Our challenges were emotional, and financial, however, we did pull through.  Families who live in poverty would have the constant stress and worry about providing for their children.  Ann's personal story of living in poverty offered a glimpse of what it is like to be in the "dark bottomless pit"
Stephanie, my other contact works in an inner city school where there is a 97% poverty rate!  The children are given breakfast and lunch every day.  Food is sent home on the weekend with approximately 10% of the students.  Stephanie mentions that she deals with issues of poverty every day.  From dealing with parents who lack medical and dental care, to dealing with parents with drug issues or mental illness, Stephanie tells me that the home life of the children is very unstable.  Stephanie feels that the most important thing she can do is to offer a safe, warm, loving environment in her grade three classroom.
I enjoyed learning more about poverty from both of my contacts.