I looked up in the dictionary the meaning of poor and poverty and it says, respectively, having little or no money, goods, or other means of support, meagerly supplied or endowed with resources or funds and the state or condition of being poor; indigence. Out of curiosity, I also looked up the definition of rich:  having wealth or great possessions; abundantly supplied with resources, means, or funds; wealthy. The meaning of the Portuguese word “rico – rich” surprised me: those who have great possessions, abundant, magnificent, content, happy.

I don’t know if you’ve noticed, but I realize that the meanings reflect a lot of what society preaches culturally as something right. However, it is not the way it is, isn’t it? Since when ‘supplied abundantly with resources and means’ is synonymous of happiness and goodness? What is really going on is that people who have money know what tools to use to make money work. More humble people, often uneducated, are limited to more menial positions. Although it is not because they cannot afford to pay for college or finish school, or they are not capable of having a worthy and happy life.

The United Nations established that the decade from 2008 to 2017 will be the decade for eradication of poverty in the world, focusing on extreme poverty and we will have a lot of work. Political institutions, governments, and international relations will have to develop increasingly closer relationships so that one country can help the other, making the global economy rise, creating more jobs, and providing children and young people with better access to education, a quality education.

But you have to agree that we have to be very optimistic so that all of this could really happen. Unfortunately, poverty is a historic mark worldwide. The sociologist Karl Marx had already defended the idea of uniting the proletariat against the bourgeoisie in order to end the reign of capitalism, establish communism, and, thus, reduce social inequalities.

It was not quite what had happened. Capitalism has been increasingly fortified and the “proletarians” as the poor were called by Marx have become more and more imprisoned by this maximum force of capital transactions and enterprises.

To achieve its goal of ending hunger, poverty, reducing diseases and other crucial factors that characterize the people devoid of capital goods, the UN must rely on a massive mobilization not only ours, but especially that of governments, businesses and industries that create a large number of jobs. Thus, there will be more money, more incentives to study and more opportunities for all. This is a battle for all of us. Let’s embrace it and do it right.