Poverty

Most of the time when we think of aid, we only think of the good that comes from it. By all means, aid is great, it has been so helpful to many people and really provided great short-term results for developing countries. Like I said these results were short term.  One of the biggest long term problems in Haiti has been underemployment and unemployment. The United States has been the number one aid giving country to Haiti, they give around $460 million.  So we can ask ourselves that even though Haiti has receive so much why is it still an impoverished country? The country continues to have a terrible economy and is one of the worst governed countries in the world. Isn’t all the aid meant to help them get out of the poverty, and help the country grow?  Haiti is thought of as a fragile state, the government has been corrupt in how they use the money that was given by the aid services.

So how can we solve the problem of poverty in Haiti? Is the answer to stop giving aid, or to stop any trade so that the government will have no money to use for the wrong reasons? No, we must try to get to the people, the uneducated. Although there are laws that education is mandatory for all Haitian’s it has never been executed and this is where we seen another issue rise from the lack of education. No matter how much money is given to a country if the people don’t know how to use it, or save it then they will get nowhere. This is why education is so important in the development of a country.

This is my idea, first of we have to target the younger children, those who are at the age where school is vital and a necessity. Once we teach the children how to be responsible and how to maintain themselves, we are setting out the path for the future. A second idea is to start projects, ones that are completely funded by the aid. This is where the combination of the aid that is still required and the projects could change the future economy and turn Haiti to start on a path to becoming a developed country. The projects involve training the “workers” but paying them, there would be different fields of work to accommodate for all the people. The workers will be trained not just on how to work, but how to spend money wisely. Once they have ‘graduated’ from the training they are set to lead in the training, or given the opportunity to join another business, which has joined with the program. When they work in the business they will get paid a good salary and opportunities for promotion, eventually they may be able to start their own business creating jobs for many more people. Through educating the people, we can help Haiti become a developed country, and leave their current state of poverty.