Be The Change You Want To See In The World is a blog that is centered around changing the world by yourself. One post focuses on a trip to India, where the author writes about how she and her husband set out on a year-long trip to help out at an orphanage.
I also do not disagree with the fact that they were trying to help people in need, but I think they were going about it in a way that is not helpful. By going into this village and trying to improve the lives of these people, they assumed they knew what was best for them. They came up with solutions that they thought fit the situation best, rather than asking the people what they needed.
The solution to poverty is not as simple as giving money to those who are poor; there are many factors involved in poverty, ranging from lack of education and healthcare to gender inequality. It is up to us as individuals and as a community to come together and figure out solutions for our own problems instead of having someone else come in and solve it for us.
I went to India. It was crazy. I learned a ton of stuff about India, but I’m not going to tell you about it. Instead, I’m going to tell you about how I grew as a person and how my life has been changed by this experience.
I learned that people in India are just like people anywhere else. They have hopes and dreams and fears and desires. They want what’s best for their families, they want to live a long time, they don’t want to be poor or homeless or hungry, and they want to be happy.
I learned that if you’re poor in the US, it’s probably your fault. You don’t have any excuses anymore because you’ve got it way better than those kids living on the streets of Mumbai.
I learned that countries like India need help from countries like America. We should probably stop spending so much money on war and take a fraction of that money and send it over there so they can build roads and sewage systems and schools and hospitals because they could really use them (and we could probably start with our own infrastructure here too… but that’s another post).
I am tired of reading about the same old problems in India: poverty, corruption, discrimination. I am tired of being told that there is nothing I can do. That I should just feel bad and give money.
I want to know what we can do to change things. The truth is that there is much more you can do than you think, if you are willing to spend a little time thinking about how to make a difference. This post is my attempt at thinking through that question.
Let’s start with the basics: What does the term “making a difference” even mean? Many people use it as an excuse not to act. They say things like: “Well, there is a lot of poverty in the world, but what can one person really do?”
The answer is simple: You can make yourself happier by making other people happier too! And if everyone makes themselves happier by making others happy then everyone will be happier overall!
I was very lucky to be able to go to India. The trip was not just fun and games, but I got a lot out of it. I think that this is what a lot of people want when they come here.
I met a man named Shankar who lives in a small village about 20km from the town of Dharamsala in the Indian state of Himachal Pradesh. He has been working hard for many years to build up his village, and he is an inspiration to me.
I have been to India many times before, but this was the first time that I had spent so much time with an Indian family. It was an experience I will never forget and I learned a lot about myself and about India as well.
I stayed with Shankar’s family for two weeks, and we had some great conversations about life and politics, among other topics.
In India I saw beggars who were missing limbs, but I also saw beggars who weren’t missing limbs. I’ve read that most of the beggar children in India are kidnapped and forced to beg. Well, maybe some of them were kidnapped, but some of them were definitely not kidnapped.
India is full of street kids and homeless kids. Some of them are obviously homeless because they’re dirty and scabby and wearing rags; others look exactly like you or me. The kid who runs up to you begging for money is often the same kid who was sitting next to you on the bus.
This makes it hard to know what’s going on. If a big strong man comes up to me with a knife and takes my wallet, I know what’s going on: he’s robbing me. But if a little girl comes up to me with her hand out, am I really sure she’s trying to rob me? Maybe she really is as poor as she looks.
Maybe she is trying to rob me–but would it be so bad if she did? A lot of the people we met in India were living on ten cents a day or less. That sort of thing can happen when there are more than one billion people in one country. Even if
The people of India are, by and large, not rich. There is a lot of poverty in this country, and it can be overwhelming. The slums, the beggars on every street corner, the children who follow you around in the hopes that you will give them a few rupees – all of these will touch your heart and make you feel guilty for having so much when they have so little.
Asides from these sights being sad, they are also often dirty, smelly and dangerous. Just like any city in the world there are homeless people living on the streets, but in India it seems much more prevalent. Big cities like Delhi and Mumbai have huge slums where people live in shacks made of bits of plastic and other discarded materials. These poor people often try to earn money by begging or performing tasks for others – many tourists help them out by giving them a small amount of change or asking them to take photographs for them.
But despite the poverty that is evident on every street in India there is also a great spirit of generosity and goodwill towards others. This can be seen most clearly at times when disaster strikes β whether it be an earthquake or a train crash or severe flooding β the Indian government will always do their utmost to provide assistance to those affected
One area of our lives we have been working on is the environment. We do all the things that you should do to save the planet. We recycle, use reusable shopping bags, and use compact fluorescent light bulbs (CFLs). We compost, grow our own food, and raise chickens for eggs. We are aware of what we put in our bodies, such as products made from recycled materials.
But then we thought about it a little more. What about the rest of the world? Are we doing enough? As individuals can we really make a difference globally? In finding an answer to this question I came across an article written by Worldchanging.com co-founder and executive editor Alex Steffen called The Power Of One: A Citizen’s Guide To Fighting Global Warming.
The article states “When it comes to global warming, every little bit counts.” What does that mean? It means that if you change your habits just a little bit you can make a big difference in saving the planet from global warming and climate change. Here are few examples:
What You Can Do:
