More than eighty percent of the world’s population lives on less than ten dollars a day. This is because of many things but mostly because of the people’s geographic location (Shan). Geography is the main reason for poverty because most countries don’t have the natural resources necessary for living. They don’t have the things that we have and probably take for granted everyday like electricity, running water, and sufficient shelter to live in. It is very difficult for people that live in places that have limited water because without it they cannot grow crops and then they don’t have anything to eat. In the movies Swades and Turtles Can Fly, they show poverty in different geographic locations and how they are affected by it.
One thing that affects people geographically is that the people are trapped in thesl e locations. They are trapped and there is now way of getting out of it. It could be that they live in a desert area or they just live in the slums of city. In the film Swades, the location is set in a smaltown out in the country in India. The people here are not educated and they don’t have very good jobs. Even if they wanted to get out of this poverty stricken place they can’t because they don’t have the recourses to do it. Schooling is not important to these people because they know that they will not be able to do anything with it. Even if they try to get a higher education, they don’t have the money to pay for it. Also, because of the location some of the jobs are not as profitable as others. Some of the villagers live too far away from the school and cannot get there and one man says that since his children are reaching the age of marriage, there is no point sending them off because primarily the woman do not work outside of the house. The setting of Turtles Can Fly is on the border between Turkey and Iran.They have a small village mainly filled with children and elders. All the kids live in small huts together. Satellite, one of the older kids in the village, orders around the kids and gives them jobs so they can make money. Their main job is deactivating old mines from the mine fields. Most of these kids will never get the chance to leave this place partly because some of them will be involved in an accident with the mines and either die or lose a limb, or because they have had no education and they don’t know anything different. Most of them don’t even realize what all they are missing out on.
Natural resources are another thing that affects poverty geographically. Most countries have become industrialized because of the natural resources that lie in their land. Wars have started because countries are scarce in natural resources, so they invade to try to gain new land with abundant resources. Those countries or cities that lack these resources never become industrialize and therefore continue to live in poverty. This is what it is like in Swades. The town is nothing like America, where the main character, Mohan, grew up. The streets aren’t paved; the houses are no longer made of brick and wood but with clay and straw rooftops. When Mohan goes back, he sees that they have nothing that he is used to. They do not have running water, reliable electricity, television, internet, and many other things that he has become accustomed to. After time, Mohan realizes that he wants to help the people out. He gathers the men of the village and plans to use the stream coming down from the hill, to generate electricity. After a long process of planning and building, they finally get enough water power to generate electricity. Without this stream and its location they would not be able to produce electricity this way. They are making a step to a more modern civilization but with this they are losing some of their customs and way of life at the same time. It is pretty similar in Turtles Can Fly. Their shelter is not very good; they live in large tents. The resources there are not very abundant and the village is not industrialized although they do have electricity established already. They lack the resources, like farming land, to establish an economy that they clearly need. Only when they can establish some sort of economy or government system, will they be able to get out of the poverty stricken area that they live.
One very important thing that affects people geographically is disease and lack of medical help. These people suffer from some of the worst diseases in the world and they have no one there that can help them out or give them any kind of medical attention that they need. These people cannot afford any type of medication because it is very expensive and no one will sell it to the cheap. Also, there are no doctors to give the regular checkups that they need to see what is wrong with them. In the movie Turtles Can Fly, the children are being hurt and even killed from the mine fields. They are losing limbs and no one there can help them out to amputate the limb properly or give them any sort of medication that could help ease the pain they go through or kill the bacteria they get from the wounds. Many of the children there are missing a limb or one of their relatives is missing one. Only because of their geographic location, they cannot get help. The movie doesn’t show much about disease and the struggles the people go through. In Swades, one of the school teachers becomes ill. Eventually he cannot fight it any longer and he dies. If they could have had proper medication and medical attention, he could have been helped. He might not have been cured but maybe just kept alive a little while longer.
Geographically, another thing that affects people is food. Every day thousands of people die from hunger alone. They don’t have the right kind of settings needed to grow crops. There is limited water and the conditions are too harsh for anything to strive. In the movie Swades, Mohan goes to visit a man that owes Gita some money and tries to get it from him. When Mohan arrives, the man feeds him and when they are done the man tells him about how he could no longer be a weaver so he switched to a farmer, but when he switched to a farmer he could not get any water for his crops so most of them died. The crops that did grow he could not sell because the people didn’t want them. Now the man could not support his family. They are suffering and they cannot do anything to stop it, so Mohan, feeling bad for the man, gives him some money and tells him not to worry about paying Gita back the money he owes her for leasing her land. In Turtles Can Fly, the children are not old enough to farm.Also, much of the land surrounding them is covered in mines so they cannot use any of that to provide for food.
Geography is one of the most important reasons that poverty exists in the world today. Thousands of people are dying every day just because of where they live. Whether they live in a rural area or urban area poverty can exist. These people are born into this and they cannot get out. They don’t have the natural resources that could help them get out of this mess they are living in. They cannot provide enough food to support their families and the land is too rugged to grow crops. With disease spreading through the country, these people cannot get any medication to help them. There is no one near them that is trained to treat them or provide them with the proper equipment needed to diagnose them. Even though geography is one of the main reasons for poverty, with the help of other countries we can try and help the effects of it in the world.
Work Cited
Ebert, Roger. "Turtles Can Fly." Movie Reviews 14 Apr 2005 Web.20 Apr 2009. .
Shan, Anup. "Causes of Poverty." Global Issues 22 Mar 2009 Web.20 Apr 2009. .
Venkataramanan, Vijay. "Swades." Bollywood - Film Review 17 Dec 2004 Web.20 Apr 2009. Swades/>.
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