the ultrapoor...

Voices from Ethiopia--
What it Feels Like to Be among the Ultrapoor
we are left tied like straw
living by scratching like a chicken
what is life when there is no friend or food
life has made us ill
we are deprived and pale
we are above the dead and below the living
hunger is a hyena
a life that cannot go beyond food
we simply watch those who eat
difficulties have made us crazy
we sold everything we have and have become shelter-seekers
it is [like] sitting and dying alive
a life that is like being flogged
a life that makes you look older than your age
just a sip and no more drop is left
if one is full, the other will not be full
we have become empty like a hive



"Lack of food worries me. My children were hungry and I told them rice is cooking, until they fell asleep from hunger." -An older man from Besda, Egypt

"Water is life, and because we have no water, life is miserable." -Kenya

"Poverty is like living in jail, living under bondage, waiting to be free." -Jamaica

"I want to commit suicide, I want to run out... because to see the kids crying, and I do not have one sucre [a few cents] to given them some bread.... Life is so sad." -A woman in Ecuador

"Poverty is lack of freedom, enslaved by crushing daily burden, by depression and fear of what the future will bring." -Georgia

"We poor men have no friends. Our only friend is the ground." -A man in Nigeria

"A poor person has to exist so he can serve the great one, the rich. God made things like that." -Man in Brazil



--all from Ending Global Poverty: A Guide to What Works by Stephen C. Smith