Reflection Post
If you are the prime minister, a famous musician, or just a normal citizen, everybody in the universe is impacted by global issues. If we take poverty in India, for example, some people may have family members in India, you may go to school with someone who has relatives in India, or if you live in India, this problem may be affecting your whole lifestyle.

The statement that everyone can contribute to a positive change is completely true. For many issues, including poverty in India, people may think you have to be rich to make a difference. Just donating a few dollars to an organization that helps deal with poverty in India will help. Take this into consideration. If five hundred people donated five dollars, that would equal up to $2500!

Small actions can bring about big change connects to what I was saying about everyone contributing to a positive change. You do not have to be rich to donate only a few dollars. If numerous people donate just a few dollars, then it will add up in a hurry. 

Lets just say that we cannot solve issues by just doing it as individuals. We might be able to do small actions that create small outcomes to help these issue, but we need as many people as possible so all these small outcomes turn into a much bigger outcome. We need to stick together and make a plan, that's why there are NGOs out there. Global and local issues require a logical, problem solving approach is one hundred percent true.

How do we balance the world's need for resources and products with the protection of the people or of the government? Instead of diminishing the resources in one country or one part of the world, we need to spread out where we get the resources. We also need to buy from other countries because of the need for money to stop poverty. If we just buy from one country, then other countries suffer due to the fact that they do not receive as much income.

Who should be responsible for finding a solution to this issue - government, corporations, individuals? I believe that the government should be responsible. First of all, they have annual meetings discussing issues around the world. Secondly, if they were to discuss the issue of poverty in India, they could find a solution to either put laws to help stop poverty, or see how other countries can help India with their issue of poverty.

Globally, have things changes for the better or remained the same over the past few decades? The answer to this question is not within it. In my opinion, I think that globally, things have gotten worse. I also believe that things are going to get worse in the next few decades too, if we do not do anything about major problems around the world. Poverty, a MASSIVE issue all around the globe. Especially in India. Think about what I have taught you in my blog; the increase in population, how even themselves are making it worse. We need to make this issue more of a priority, starting now and continuing into the future.

A Plan to Help
My plan to help would consist mainly to spreading the news to other people about poverty in India. For example, this blog is one way of spreading the news to people around the world through the internet. Another way to spread the news would be by informing my family members during supper, and sharing the facts I have learned doing this blog at family events. 

Raising awareness about NGOs dealing with poverty in India would be another step to my plan to help. This would would raise more money and generate more volunteers to help support these NGOs to complete their goal.

Something that I could do is start a fundraiser to help raise money for poverty in India. This money could be donated to an NGO, as stated before and other than just raising money, it would also spread awareness about this issue.

Other more simple gestures that I could accomplish might consist of; putting up posters, placing donation jars in stores, and a charity hockey game where all the proceeds are donated to an NGO. All these simple gestures would help the major issue, poverty in India, a lot. Even the simplest gestures could help in some way!

Challenges Involved
There are many challenges that are involved in trying to stop poverty, excessively in India. Growing population is the one main challenges to stop this issue, as it ties into all the other challenges.

Growing population is a MAJOR challenge with helping alleviate poverty in India. With the population rates steadily rising, we have to provide more and more resources for the people in poverty. The chart below shows dramatic increase in population from 1950-2015.

As you can see, the population in India in 1950 was just below four hundred million. In 2015, the population is over 1.2 billion people! You might be thinking, "How does this affect us helping?". Well, as I just stated before the graph, we have to provide more education and resources for the poor people in India. It is a bit eased with people volunteering or donating to NGOs, but their population is rising quicker than we are donating and volunteering. The higher the population rises in India, the more education that needs to be provided, which makes it harder to find enough well-qualified teachers that will teach in these schools that are being created. It is hard to generate employment for India with the mass population. Even with that, people are unqualified for 'normal' jobs, due to the lack of education in India. Another benefit that is being diminished within India is healthcare. The same issue with the diminishing of healthcare is shared with that of education. There are too many people for the amount of facilities and doctors. As population continues to increase steadily, so do the challenges that are faced now and will also create more challenges in the future.

How Can Individuals Get Involved?
There are many ways that individuals can get involved. Some simple, some may be a bit more complicated. Joining or helping NGOs, for example, can be a more simple way of helping poverty in India.

As stated before, even doing something as little as joining or helping an NGO can be a massive help to poverty in India. CARE India and Nanhi Kali are some of the NGOs tackling this issue. Individuals that donate to these organizations are providing more education, more needs to the people in India. How can a small amount of money help with this massive problem? Even the smallest donation adds up when donating to these organizations. These organizations could grow, helping more people in these poor places, therefore spreading the news to people around the world about this issue. When more people know, then a bounteous amount of money will be donated and stacked up to help with the poverty in India! Other than donating, you could also volunteer for one of these organizations. This will mean you could go on a trip to India, and actually be apart of the work that the organizations do when they are in India. As with donating, this also helps the organization grow. Most people that do volunteer will most-likely tell their friends, who might be interested in volunteering too!

There are other ways that do not involve NGOs. You could start a group at school or work to put up posters, alerting people about this problem. You might think that this will not help with the issue, but if lots of people know about the issue, then more people will take action in helping stop it. This could also connect back to the NGOs. If numerous amounts of people know about it, then additional people will donate, and as stated before, they will consider joining the cause.

Organizations Involved in Helping

Many organizations are out in the world helping many different causes. Poverty is a major problem in India, and you should join or support one of these non-governmental organizations (NGO) that I have researched and stated below. Most of the NGOs in India are involved in helping alleviate poverty, and many of them have similar ways to help take action. These ways are by empowering women and children and providing education in poor communities around India.

1. CARE India

CARE India is a part of a much larger NGO, CARE. CARE helps alleviate poverty in many places around the world, including India. CARE was founded in 1945 and started to reach out to India in June 1946. This organization's mission statement is:

“CARE India helps alleviate poverty and social exclusion by facilitating empowerment of women and girls from poor and marginalized communities."

(http://www.careindia.org/vision-mission)

2. Nanhi Kali

Nanhi Kali is an NGO that helps give education to a girl child in India. This organization was founded in 1996 by the K. C. Mahindra Education Test (KCMET). Anand Mahindra, who is the chairman for Mahindra and Mahindra Ltd., started this project thinking that educated women would contribute in the economy. Educated women would also help stop child marriage, therefore somewhat controlling a big cause of poverty in India, their population. Nanhi Kali's mission statement is:

"The aim of providing primary education to underprivileged girl children in India.” 

  (http://www.nanhikali.org/who-we-are/index.aspx)

How is Canada Involved?

First of all, people in Canada are getting involved with the issue, poverty in India, by joining NGOs that help in India, or just paying a visit to provide supplies and help build homes and schools. A great example of this would be Shobha Kumari Sharma. Shobha is the Projects and Programs Country Director of India for Free The Children (FTC). When she went to India, she visited a community called "Lai Community" and helped build a refurbished school. When she and her coworkers and volunteers arrives, they found a hut that was being used as a pub during the night, and a school during the day. They worked with the community to complete a five-room primary school, with five well-educated teachers. The school then had fifty-five percent girls with the school going from ten students to one hundred seventy students.

As a country, Canada is not primarily involved with this issue, but there are NGOs, and individuals that are helping with poverty in India. If the government is not going to help, then we, as individuals should help with this major issue in India.

Who is Contributing to the Issue?

Many people are contributing to poverty in India, making it worse. It could be by the people living in the country, companies outside the country or other people around the world.

In India, the main reason to poverty is created by them, Indian citizens. Due to how largely overpopulated India is, there are many people left without jobs, education, health care, and even homes. From 1960 to 2013, their population grew by almost one billion people! With the population rapidly rising, so does poverty. The difficulty of alleviating poverty also rises, with more and more people to help become in a non-poverty state. 

India imports more valued goods than they export to other countries. This puts them in a position of debt. More countries need to support India by importing more of their goods and therefore, the countries importing from India are responsible for them being in debt.

Global Citizen

A global citizen is basically a person who cares about the Earth and cares about being sustainable to make the world better environmentally and physically. Sadly, not everyone that lives on the Earth is a global citizen. In fact, there are many people that are not being sustainable and not trying to help the Earth; therefore they are not considered a global citizen. It is very important to be a global citizen. First of all, we need to be sustainable, because there is only one Earth, so we cannot use up all of the resources on our planet. If this does happen, where are we supposed to live? Sustainability can be defined as re-using something over and over again to stop the depletion of that resource. Being sustainable could consist of; renewable power, such as windmills and water-based power. Also, a more friendly way of transportation like electric trains, hybrid cars, and electric cars would be considered sustainable. A more environmentally safe mode of transportation would not emit greenhouse gases that would destroy the Ozone layer. Other than sustainability, we also need to be more aware of problems with the Earth that are occurring currently. For example, the topic of my blog, poverty in India. This is not only a problem that occurs in India, but it also is happening all around the globe and we need to help stop it! We all need to come together and become global citizens!