I’m blogging from the basement of the EWB House on Dundas and Claremont in Toronto. For the next 6 days, I will be calling this place home as a transient place towards my final destination: Malawi.
The first day of training brought a lot of joys and struggles. Joys such as realizing some of my strengths and contributions that I can make towards the Malawi Team. Struggles that point out that I have much learning to do and thinking and trying to connect theoretical knowledge with the more practical applications. Our discussion today tried to define “poverty” and “development” I struggled with these terms, because it’s challenging to create a succinct description of these complex terms.
Poverty: what is meant by this? A lack of security, lack of meeting the basic needs? Lack of opportunity to lead a happy life?
Development: Providing opportunity? Alleviating poverty (but what does poverty mean to begin with?)
The Junior Fellows were given a task to interview random people on the streets about their take on poverty. Some people gave it some thought, some people defined poverty in their communities, others defined poverty internationally. However, a lot of people just ignored the term and brushed off the thought like it was…unimportant.
I’m excited to be here and it still feels a little surreal. I think I’m still expecting to go home after the 7 days but my home will be halfway around the world.
