The Crossroads Experience: A Glimpse Into Poverty
This past weekend I had the wonderful opportunity (thanks to the company I work for) to do volunteer work with some kids from the Boys & Girls Association of Hong Kong.
We travelled to an NGO called Crossroads located in the Gold Coast (yes, there is a Gold Coast here in HK – though very different from the Queensland one!). We were to play a simulation game together, to gain a glimpse into what life is like for those who live in slums and gain a basic understanding of Fair Trade and globalization. Crossroads have been conducting similar games at the World Economic Forum with participants such as Sir Richard Branson.
As volunteers, we were there to help lead, and to help the students practice their conversational English. I really had no idea what to expect. Before the game started, we were broken up into smaller ‘families.’ In my ‘family’ I had one boy student (a son), and two girl students (daughters). They ranged in age from 13-15yrs. As families living in a slum (there were about 8 families in total), we each had a specified amount of time (10 minutes blocks) to make paper bags out of newspapers, flour and water, and sell them to local shops. The shop sellers could give us any amount of money they wanted, or they could just tear the bags up and we’d have to start again. We would need to earn enough money to pay for food, rent, also somehow try to maintain good health, and if at all possible save a large amount of money to send a child to school.
The whole experience was INTENSE. My family only had four people whilst others had five, so we were really struggling in terms of churning out enough paper bags. I found that I had to keep telling myself it was going to be okay, and to keep encouraging my ‘children’ to keep going and working hard, even if it seemed so hopeless. We ended up losing our ‘home’ and then had to live under the bridge, which was owned by a very shrewd and mean landlord. At one point, I had to choose between selling off my two ‘daughters’ in the family to the landlord (and never seeing them again), or agreeing to be his second wife and therefore be able to send all the kids to school. Being a mum of two daughters myself, it was an easy decision to make – there was no way I was going to sell them off!
We only did that activity for just under an hour. But I tell you it felt like so much longer than that – and there was a lot of emotion – in fact during the hour you actually forget that it IS only a game! Kudos to the students in my little ‘family’ – they kept going even when it seemed easier to give up. Through our limited English conversations, I found them to be bright, mindful, mature and kind. For that hour or so, our situation seemed so hopeless and desperate. We were given no respect. We worked so hard only to gain so little. And it just seemed like an endless cycle – no matter how hard we worked, we just couldn’t break through that invisible barrier.
And the very sad, heart-breaking reality is that there are billions (not just millions) of people around the world who face this kind of life daily – not just for an hour. I cannot imagine or grasp what kind of life that would be. In many parts of the world, those living in poverty are working very hard to simply survive. In places such as India and Bangladesh, whole families are making paper bags to sell – they work for 12 hours a day, and those 12 hours translate into just under $2 (USD) of earnings. Isn’t that ridiculous?! How could they possibly feed their family, maintain good health or even send their children to school on $2 USD (or less) per day?!
So what did I come away with from that experience? Simply that we who have the opportunity and the capability to help break the cycle, should do so. Because if we don’t, who will. One of my favourite quotes is by Theodore Roosevelt: “Do what you can, with what you have, where you are.” And how to help? I’m not going to list a hundred ways to help but I will mention two organisations that I have supported over a number of years who do TRULY help break the cycle by providing things we tend to take for granted – education, good health, skills improvement, physical/emotional/spiritual and mental support. One is child sponsorship through Compassion International, and the other is through business micro-financing via KIVA. They don’t require a lot of money – perhaps a few sacrifices on entertainment, clothes, food now and then – but worth it when you think about where the money is going and the impact it will have on the future of the recipient.
{some of the kids getting ready for lunch}
{Crossroads has a wonderful shop selling Fair Trade goodies!}
And if you’d read this far, I just want to say THANK YOU for letting me share this experience with you :-) Thank you to Nhu and Jennifer for the opportunity to be involved.
