Fernando M. Reimers et a1.

Activity 5.5.5
The Web of Poverty

In this activity, students are provided with name cards that represent ficti-
tious people of different ages in different roles and occupations. Students
are informed that collectively, these cards mirror a society in which the old
people are not working, some of the young people are in school or don’t have
jobs, some of the people are earning lots of money, and some are earning less.
The teacher informs the students that he or she will gradually introduce cer—
tain situations that some people will have to alter their behavior to address.
The teacher should introduce this as a dynamic game in which each group of
people responds to the others group. The teacher gradually begins introduc—
ing different situations. The following is a suggested list of situations:

1. The costs of health care and education rise, or certain individuals
don’t have access to health~care facilities when they need care.

2. Some students drop out of school or don’t have access to learning
opportunities.

3. There is a disaster in the country, and all of the family’s assets are
lost.
The price of fOOd increases owing to less agricultural output.

5. Some people lose their current jobs, and thus, their families don’t

have money.

The teacher should stress the importance of finding a solution to the is—
sue despite the constraints at hand. The aim of this is to bring to light the
agency of ordinary people who may be poor.

Based on this activity, the teacher helps the students draw various intercon—
nections between poverty, education, livelihoods, and access to health care
and realize that poverty is a dynamic concept that evolves over time owing
to the complexity of the issue at hand.

The students write a blog post about what they learned and reflect on one
particular instance that influenced their way of thinking about poverty.

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