User blog comment:Craiglpalmer/Global Goals: Why We're Telling Everyone/@comment-1142365-20150926161240

The vile mix of ignorance, indifference and misinformation in these comments paints the picture of why global change has always been very hard to accomplish.

I think a lot of it stems from an Western-centric view of the world that is fed to kids in the Western world. In a country where the federal poverty line for an average family of 4 is $24,250/annum, it is easy to see why "poverty" is not seen as a lack of money or belongings, but instead laziness or incompetence. This idea is perpetrated constantly by the media, politicians and supporters of such, often with a hint of racism, purposeful or not.

I am not from the West and I was never subjected to an education that teaches kids that poverty is a symptom of laziness or incompetence, or both. In the part of the world where I am from, poverty manifests itself in people not having a roof over their heads. It manifests itself in a sizable part of the population not having a safe and clean place to go to the bathroom. Poor public services. Disgusting and ill-equipped hospitals. No concept of garbage collection. No concept of clean water. No concept of a sewage treatment system for the entire city. Where the city's electrical grid will go dark for hours at a time multiple times during the day. Poverty doesn't just affect individuals, it affects entire swathes of the country.

It's not like this because the people subject to crippling poverty are lazy. It's not because they are incompetent or they don't have an education. It's because people who have the resources to help either don't know they can help, or they choose not to help.

It is difficult for a Westerner to understand issues that they are inherently sheltered from. Westerners don't have to put up with most of the things Global Goals is trying to sort out. Westerners have enough food to go around. They have good healthcare. They have quality education, oftentimes free. Equality is more widespread in the Western world, even though there are definitely still many important steps to take. Indeed, Nepal is the only country in Asia to offer any sort of government-ordained support for those who identify as LGBT*Q to be themselves, and this started a matter of days ago. Westerners live in relative peace. They don't have to put up with crippling civil wars that have ravaged the Middle East and Africa in recent times. Westerners can go to any bathroom and be pretty sure they can get clean water from the tap. We can keep going with this for a while.

So to all of those who are skeptical about projects like this, understand that these aren't here to help you. There here to help people who lack the privilege you have to be able to look down on projects like these and comment on how unhelpful they are. Your perspective is dangerous to those who do need the change global initiatives have been trying to drive. Projects like this require more than sympathy, they require true understanding and education of the difficulties people without the privilege you have face.