Are we doing enough to address poverty and marginalized communities?

yayasan1malaysia's Poll:
Are we doing enough to address poverty and marginalized communities?

Comments (1)

AZIZ FIKRY MOHAMMAD says:
2011/07/19 at 5:09 pm

ARTICULATING THE CONCEPTS
Abject poverty is demoralizing, while relative poverty motivates the target group to keep running to be ahead of the moving poverty line.
IDENTIFYING THE POOR
I suppose, with available technology(e.g GIS) and by integrating various sources of data (e.g. surveys, censuses, registration) the government machinery could easily identify and locate the pockets of poverty across the nation.
DRASTIC ACTIONS
A more drastic approach is to round-up the beggars; their population is expected to swell during the fasting month, particularly around the mosques. Keep and feed them for the duration of the fasting month. While in ‘captivity’ (they should be allowed and encouraged to perform their religious duties, guided by government approved religious teachers), an intensive study could be conducted to determine whether they should be included under the ‘hard-core’ poor category. The genuine should be assisted, and their particulars recorded in a proper database for follow-up programmes.
On the other hand, the imposters who are spoiling our image (portraying us as a nation of beggars) and eroding confidence in our statistics (their presence in droves in public places could induce scepticisms of our poverty figures among journalists, social activists and foreigners) shoud be remanded and blacklisted from government assistance. If they have been wrongly classified in our previous data collection exercises, then adjustments should be made to our national poverty statistics.
A MATTER OF INTERPRETATIONS
Maybe, the imposters are adopting the relative measure, while the authorities are intent on using the absolute measure.