We watched a documentary called Poverty, Inc., which is primarily focused on poverty conditions in Haiti and several other African countries. I was first a little curious why the producers decided to focus on Haiti when there are many other countries that suffer from poverty in Asia, Latin America, etc. Later on, Mark Weber, one of the co-producers, explains that it was because Haiti and other African countries are just closer to the US, and a lot of our aid goes directly to them, which sets up the situation perfectly for viewers to digest.

My takeaway from this event is that those that keep people in poverty are the ones that control the most power, and lose the most from change, while the people who are in poverty have no power, and would gain the most of things changed. In context, we’re talking about the global aid system, which is supposed to be for the benefit of those in poverty, but what the documentary explains is that it creates a generation of people who are “dependent” on aid rather than working to get themselves out of poverty. Another interviewee explained in the documentary that the reason why those who try to work themselves out of poverty can’t is because they are excluded from international trade and the global society. The most striking thing to me is to find out that the money we pay in tax dollars that goes towards the government for global aid is actually hurting the countries, and we are wasting our tax dollars on that.