Western cultures place a high emphasis on social justice, the idea that all people deserve equal rights in all areas. Recent political advances have many westerners believing that humanity on the whole is taking drastic strides towards a socially just world. In reality, however, much of western society is shielded from the world’s brutal realities. Consider these facts: over one thousand six-hundred children die worldwide each day from lack of access to clean drinking water, one eighth of the world’s population is hungry, and sixty-seven million young children are not in school (World Vision, Clean Water, 2014, para. 1; World Vision, Food and Agriculture, 2014, para. 1; World Vision, Child Education, 2014, para. 1). Thousands of organizations have been founded worldwide to further the cause of a true social justice, a social justice that would eliminate such hunger, lack of education, and water issues. World Vision is one of the most reputable of these international social justice organizations. Beginning with evangelist Rob Pierce’s encounter in 1947 with a Chinese orphan, World Vision has grown from a simple child-sponsoring ministry to an international organization that promotes articles 25 and 26 of the United Nation’s Universal Declaration of Human Rights.
In late 1947, while on a mission trip to China, evangelist Rob Pierce met a teacher who introduced him to an abandoned child (World Vision, Our History, 2014, para. 1). The teacher explained that she was unable to take care of the child. Perplexed as to how he could help, Bob Pierce pulled out his wallet and gave his last five dollars to support the little girl. Inspired by this encounter, Pierce founded World Vision in 1950. The organization blossomed at the end of the Ko...
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Rights. Retrieved from http://www.un.org/en/documents/udhr/
World Vision (2014, January 1). Childhood education. Retrieved from http://www.worldvision.org/our-impact/education World Vision (2014, January 1). Clean water. Retrieved from http://www.worldvision.org/our-impact/clean-water World Vision (2014, January 1). Food and agriculture. Retrieved from http://www.worldvision.org/our-impact/food-agriculture World Vision (2014, January 1). Medical care. Retrieved from http://www.worldvision.org/our-impact/health World Vision. (2014, January 1). Our history | World Vision International.
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Wuthnow, R. (2009). Boundless Faith: The Global Outreach of American Churches. California: University of California Press.
My definition of social justice in the field of education is based on the United Nations Convention on the Rights of a Child and the British-Colombia School Act that state that every child has a right to a proper education (UNICEF, n.d.; School Act, RSBC 1996, c. 412). A proper education to me is based on opportunity. I believe that in order to have a proper education, children should all be entitled to equal opportunity in their learning process. Children should have equal opportunity to obtain the supports that will assist them in achieving their potential.
Peter Singer’s article, “The Singer Solution to World Poverty”, highlights the need to prevent absolute poverty in developing countries. An estimate of one billion people live in “a condition of life characterized with malnutrition, illiteracy, disease, squalid surroundings, high infant mortality and low life expectancy” according to Wesley Bagby (pp. 29). As a victim of Sudan’s civil war and a former refugee, I totally understand what it means to be homeless and street child. The hardship endured by homeless and street children on a daily basis is unbelievable; a day without food to eat, a day without clean water to drink, a day without shelter, a day without cloth, a day without medical care, and a day without security. There is no doubt that a
Smith, Stephen C. Ending Global Poverty: A Guide to What Works. New York: Palgrave Macmillan, 2005. Print.
Theories of global distributive justice address the following sorts of questions. Should we feel morally concerned about the large gap between the developing countries and the developed countries? What duty do us citizens have to provide assistance to the global poor? And what scale should we take the duties to?
Social justice is a core value in the social work field. We define social justice as, “all citizens would possess equal fundamental rights, protection, opportunities, obligations and social benefits (Kirst-Ashman & Hull, 2015, p. 29). Unfortunately, we understand there are many members in today’s society that are not receiving social justice. Some may not want help and believe that s/he is able to do it on their own and then there are the individuals that we may not know about that could really use our help. Our jobs as social workers is to help those who need help no matter if they are rich, poor, disabled, white, Hispanic, it does not matter because everyone should be treated equally. As NASW states, “The original mission of social work had much to do with championing the rights of society’s most vulnerable members, from children to homeless people to the physically disabled” (NASW: National Association of Social Workers, 2015, para. 1).
It has been proven that often, the fight for social justice and the common good comes at a great cost to those involved. Through writings such as Dr. Martin Luther King’s “Letter from a Birmingham Jail” and Sophocles’ “Antigone”, as well as, lectures such as Dr.Colbourn’s lecture “Confronting History and the Good Life: Life after Rosewood” it is demonstrated how life, freedom, and a normal everyday life suffer as a cost of fighting for social justice and the common good.
Christian Response to Third World Poverty and Injustice b) Every disciple, every authentic Christian, must be on the road: not yet arrived or perfect, but moving, striving, falling and restarting in hope, and this ethos applies to the tackling of Third World poverty and injustice. Over one billion people are living in poverty today. The gap between rich and poor is getting wider. All over the world, disparities between rich and poor, even in the wealthiest of nations is rising sharply.
Social Justice is about making society function better – providing the support and tools to help turn lives around. This is a challenging new approach to dealing with poverty in all its forms. It is not about income poverty alone.(SJS) Throughout this essay I will explore why Poverty is a primary issue when striving for Social Justice and how, we as professionals, can attempt to overcome this by working together to achieve a fairer more just society. Social Work, Primary Education and Community Learning and Development are working together collaboratively to achieve Social Justice. I will discuss the changes that have taken place in our professions and the guidelines and regulations that we must adhere to. In addition to this I will examine the positive and negative outcomes of my group experience working together with CLD, Social Work and Education Students. I will also address the historical perspective in addition to the philosophical perspectives.
I have learned that no single social issue, complex or simple, is isolated. Rather, they are all interconnected globally and are the each other’s causes and effects. I am excited to continue gaining a global perspective and determined to be a change agent in arriving at a global
In the face of media campaigns and political sanctions, the question about whether we owe the global poor assistance and rectification is an appropriate one. Despite television advertisements displaying the condition of the poor and news articles explaining it, the reality is the majority of us, especially in the Western world, are far removed from the poverty that still affects a lot of lives. The debate between Thomas Pogge and Mathias Risse regarding our obligation to the poor questions the very institution we live in. Pogge created a new framework in which the debate developed. He introduced a focus on the design of the institutional global order, and the role it plays in inflicting or at least continuing the severe poverty people are exposed to. Whilst both Mathias Risse and Thomas Pogge believe that the “global order is imperfectly developed. It needs reform rather than revolutionary overthrow”, they differ on whether or not it is just and entitles the global poor to assistance. Pogge believes that the global order is unjust as it “helps to perpetuate extreme poverty, violating our negative duty not to harm others unduly”. Risse believes that the institution is only incompletely just and can be credited to improving lives of the global poor. According to him, these improvements contribute to its justifiability and negate any further obligation we have to the poor. Through assessing their debate, it seems that one’s obligation to the poor depends on one’s conception of duty, their unit of analysis, and whether improvement rectifies injustice. On balance, it seems that we do indeed owe the poor, only we may lack the means to settle it.
About UNICEF, I expected that it was just responsible for focusing on the needs and rights of the child over the world. In fact, its aim was more than that it was also to promote the equal rights of women and girls and to support their full participation in the political, social, and economic development of their communities. In instance, celebrating annually the International Day of the Girl Child on October 11 to highlight issues concerning the gender inequality facing young girls. In addition, the organization 's extent is much wider than I anticipated. For example:
Poverty extends out over all continents, making it the most widespread negative factor. Out of the world’s 2.2 billion children, approximately half live in poverty according to UNICEF. Poverty claims approximately 22,000 children’s lives per day. This statistic illustrates the struggle children that live in poverty must face in order to survive. Poverty is a root cause of hunger, disease, and lack of shelter. It is concentrated in pockets in areas such as South Africa and South Asia. Children, who must...
In fact, in my own experience, I notice that the government of my country fail to provide adequate needs to homeless people because they saw that an issue of the individual and from charities organizations. Though the work of charities organizations is admirable, having these non- profit organizations take care of social and political issues however can be problematic, since often these charities societies have biases toward people in need which can prevent them from extending their help for all people suffering from social issues. For example, because the organization that my mother work was religiously founded, they only focused their help to homeless children suffering from mental illness and not all people suffering from the same conditions. Thus, like most government assistance, profit organizations can also make a distinction when offering their help to worthy and unworthy individuals. Also, because these organizations are fueled by an American belief on self- achievement, they tend to emphasize the individual role in poverty and see poverty rather as a character and not a social defect. Thus, as a result, charity organizations can advocate for individual relief and change to stop poverty. Finally, charities organizations can also cause major issues in the way that countries assessed and measure poverty. For example, it can give the impression that the individual is at fault for their own living conditions and second, it can cause major devolution of federal and governmental social programs. In other words, the presence of charities and other societies can cause the government to indirectly decrease its political participation in social issues by turning this a responsibility of local communities and entities. This in turn can affect the variation and diversity of social programs in the US, while reflecting the current predominant view
Human beings are willing to kill each other for the simplest amounts, imagine what they would do for all the money in the world. With this can occur an economic discrimination, which is based on economic factor. These factors can include job availability, wages, the prices and/or availability of goods and services, and the amount of capital investment. The average American doesn’t realize how good they have it in life, being able to sleep in bed, eat warmed cooked meals, and even spend money on needless things. There are homeless people all over the world being discriminated on, this very second, because of their economic status. But us, as humans don’t understand the suffering they encounter until it happens to us. We would rather sit there and donate to a homeless person wanting drugs and alcohol, rather than a begging for help to feed their family. Until we find the love and care to help the people in need our world peace is slowly drifting away from