What is Poverty?

Thinking about coming back to Canada, people have asked us how we can possibly integrate our new experiences of poverty with what we see back home. Can we have compassion for Canada's poor, many of whom benefit from a comparatively buoyant social safety net? Or should we all focus our attention overseas?

My dad asked the question most directly: "We seem so disconnected in Canada that we can't relate to the poor. I guess looking at us from where you are, there are no POOR in Canada."

My dad's comment was in reaction to our observation of poorest-of-the-poor.

Dad's right. There are few people in Canada who have so little in life that they are forced to find survival in the trash cast off by the world's poor. And yet, there are countless people in Canada who have less than nothing; whose debts outweigh their assets. Countless people who owe more than they have.

Even the men in Maputo's dumpsters owe the world little, if only because the world trusts them with little.

But what does this say about poverty? What is poverty, if it cannot be calculated by an objective balancing of a personal ledger?

Perhaps one answer is that poverty is a lack of power; the solution, then, becomes giving the impoverished a sense of controlling her own destiny.

Money, after all, is nothing but a proxy for power.

Is a man without bread to eat, who lacks the power to control his own diet, considered poor? Most people would agree that he is.

What about the child forced to work in the squalid conditions of a sewing sweatshop until her fingers are numb, lacking the power to play with a ball in the courtyard; lacking the power to be a child? Again, little disagreement.

Or a young adult without a sufficient education, who lacks the power to land a steady job?

What about the immigrant who, having arrived in North America, realizes that his credentials aren't recognized and is forced to drive a taxi in order to pay the rent? Sure, he keeps his family above water, but just barely.

Any development program, any intervention, any desire or action to help the poor should first be processed through this sieve: how is what I am proposing going to empower the poor? Will they be able to continue helping themselves long after I am gone, or once the attention of the development community has been diverted to the next crisis?

Staring poverty in the eye in Mozambique, I wrestle often to understand which position is more enviable: being a generally happy person with few economic resources, or a wealthy person who feels enslaved by circumstances and expectations?

One of the most refreshing and surprising truths about Mozambique is that many of the people here, who would fit squarely within most traditional definitions of poverty, are content. Life is not perfect for these people, but they're happy. They are in control of their lives, wear clean clothes and are relatively healthy.

There are countless others who are extremely poor: who do not have enough to eat, or cannot afford medications when they are ill, or cannot afford to clothe their children in the uniforms that the school officials require. But perhaps these people are not facing such dire circumstances simply because they lack material wealth, but rather because they lack the ability to control their own destinies.

Those who are desperately poor may need help stepping onto the first rung of the development ladder, but this hand up must be given in a way that preserves or bolsters their sense of self-control and empowerment. To give someone material wealth but rob them of their self-worth is no gift at all. We will always feel poor, whether in Africa or America, as long as we believe that we are trapped by our circumstances, however real or imagined.