If there ever was a time when we, the peoples of the earth stood a chance to totally wipe out poverty, it is now. The world is smaller than it has ever been, and keeps shrinking more and more each day, thanks to the internet and other modern technologies. In a fast shrinking world, why is poverty growing bigger? Who is feeding that monster? Why is it everywhere? Just as you can’t wake up one who pretends to sleep, so the world cannot eradicate the poverty it refuses to see. Poverty to me, is a denial of access. All poverty is human made. Poverty is the barriers we create to separate us from the other. It is walls, borders, tribal lines, religious lines, gender lines, education lines, money lines, identity lines. Whenever we deny another access, we impoverish them. The hunger, the starvation, the famine, the deaths, the decay…. All of those are just what happens when access is denied the other. So on this special day, as we seek to eradicate poverty, May I challenge you to look personally at the walls you build to keep out the other, the walls you’ve built in the name of protecting what is yours, the walls you and your community, your clan, your tribe, your country build everyday in the name of nationalism or protectionism or whatever other name… Remember, our world is fast shrinking. So if we don’t quickly band together to pull each and every single one of these artificial walls down… the poor will not be the other for longer In a fast shrinking world, the poor will soon be your neighbour … the poor will be you, if you do nothing now. Video and Words by Nana Kofi Acquah (www.nkacquah.com) @africashowboy (Copyright: 2018). #TOGETHERBAND L#nopoverty #sdg1 #officialambassador https://www.instagram.com/p/B0VuG0cFpuI/?igshid=1k9nq66xosqw8
