Sally Lam: Poverty

Although some people can make ends meets in their lives, there are still many people who live in poverty. Poverty exists not only in poor countries but also in well develop countries. Especially in those poor countries, many children live on donations. According to a statisticRE., more than 800,000 Canadian children are living in poverty. There are two main causes for poverty.




Uncontrollable nature disasters are one of the causes of poverty. Firstly, earthquakes contribute to the increase of numbers of homeless people. For example, Haiti earthquakes left 230,000 people dead and 1,000,000 homeless. Similarly, Wenchuan earthquakes in China made 11 million people lost their home. Secondly, flooding increase the number of people who live in terrible situation. For instant, 1931 China floods killed people up to 4 millions and affected 28.5 millions of people living without enough food and clean water. More over, St. Lucia’s flood killed up to 80,000 people in year 1287. Much land was flooded in what is now the Waddenzee and IJsselmeer. It destroyed cities in the Northern Germany and the Netherlands. It ruined the road and the resident building, therefore it caused many people couldn’t work and they had to live in temporally tents



Negative attitude to life is another cause of poverty. For one thing, lacks of self-discipline prevent people from achieving a better life. For example, gambling causes people live in debts, but they still go to casino. Beside this, drugging keeps people borrowing money even thought they understand that taking drugs affect their health and cost a lot of money, but they can’t stop doing this. In addiction, lacks of motivation of reach a better life will keep people from improving their lives. To illustrate, some people who have work abilities, do not willing to work but prefer receiving subsidises from the government, these peoples’ lives will not improve until they change their attitude toward life. Moreover, for some people who live without hope in their lives will develop negative emotions, so they give up a self-improvement.



In conclusion, nature disasters are one of uncontrollable causes to poverty. We could hardly do things to protect ourselves against many nature disasters. However, having a positive attitude to life can eliminate poverty. Once you improve your self-discipline and increase your motivation of achieving a better life, you will find yourself living far away from poverty.