The Brandt Line: Two Different Realities

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from an agrarian to an industrial society, helping the economy to grow. A process of economic interdependence, social, cultural, political and technological is called globalization that tends to even out culture, business, customs and thoughts (wikipedia.org). Everybody knows that attending school or university is expensive, and people from lower classes sometimes have to reduce their standards of living to give their children the opportunity to complete their studies. Because of poverty in Third World areas, such as South America or Africa, there is a high rate of illiteracy. In Asia and Africa there are 75 % of children are illiterate due to the need for money. They have to stop going to school and start to work (Rizzo). On the contrary, in European countries and United States of America, young people have great opportunities to complete their studies. The U.S. Department of Education requested $69.8 billion in discretionary funding for 2013 to have a high-quality education  (ed.gov). Unfortunately, not everybody has the same opportunity. Usually, many affluent people do not realize entirely how lucky they are and feel unhappy for secondary reasons. Many poor children would love to have as many opportunities as children from industrial countries. The difference between poor people and people from developed countries is that the modern society cannot appreciate everything that it has, because it is based on materialism. People in the underdeveloped countries fight everyday against hunger and illnesses.

In addition, health should be considered the most important thing and everybody should have the opportunity to take care of it. There are many illnesses in the world and sometimes they differ from one country to another one. In the developed countries people don’t die from illnesses as much as people in Third World countries. Life expectancy is very different between the two categories of countries. Every year more than one million of people die because of malaria. This rate corresponds to 80% of the people who live in sub-Saharan Africa. In Mali, malaria is the main cause of death to children under 5 years old (medicisenzafrontiere.it).  On the other hand, all developed countries spend a lot of money on Health Care. For example, several analysis showed that the U.S. spent an average of $9,086 per person annually in 2013 (commonwealthfund.org). It is terribly sad how many people die just because they don’t have enough money to cure their illnesses.  Even if there are many associations that send people in poor countries to volunteer and help poor populations, this problem is still widespread.  There is not a concrete solution to fix this issue, but I think that more people from developed countries must offer their help.

In conclusion, I would like to reflect about the poverty that is spread across the world. Unfortunately, nowadays more than in the past, money could be considered the basis of everything. For example people need money to cure their health, to feed themselves or to buy a house where they can live with their family. Everyone should have the same opportunities, but sadly, most of the people who were born in underdeveloped countries are destined to fight every day for survival. Most of those people have lost the hope for a better life and I think that many people from the Western world cannot understand the real value of their life as much as people from poor countries. I think that everybody should go to countries in Africa, South America to open their eyes and to see what else there is beyond their privileged world. The challenge that all this poses is enormous. One may feel discouraged, scared and especially impressed by a sad and hard reality that some people face everyday. On the other hand, the importance to do all we can to alleviate the suffering of such a large part of our brothers and sisters should give many of us the moral incentive to devote attention, time and energy to help overcome the hurdles that belong to their daily lives. Everyone comes from different countries and has different cultures, but all of them live in the same place, the Earth. People should help each other, creating a global network of help, collective power and solidarity, because all of us are citizen of the world.

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