Non-Fiction Reading Response: The End of Extreme Poverty?

"Imagine having to pick just one of your children to save, while leaving the others to face death" (Kristof 16). The article The End of Extreme Poverty? by Nicholas D. Kristof is about the life threatening decisions people have to make on a daily basis, and how it is being resolved. In Cambodia, there are people that have to make very agonizing decisions everyday because of viruses in their environment. There are a lot of people that are living in poverty that have very little money and education. The author wants me to know that poverty is a huge problem, and it is getting better because of new vaccines and technology. Since 1980, the rate of poverty has reduced from 1 in 2 to 1 in 5. All of this improvement is due to new vaccines, farming techniques, schools, clean water and technology. "The goal is to end extreme poverty by 2030- and we're close" (Kristof 17).  According to the article, with all of the new technology poverty will soon end.

Poverty makes me think and feel a huge array of emotions. To me, poverty is something that a lot of people just look over, and don't really see how bad it really is. I think that is something not to take lightly. I don't believe that people are doing enough on a daily basis. They focus on poverty when there is a huge natural disaster, and they realize that people are even worse off then they already were. I think that the author of this article wrote this mainly to say how poverty is improving due to all of the new ways people are doing things. In my opinion, poverty is a very depressing think about. A lot of people are persecuted and or punished for things that they believe. While it is similar to poverty in that people are left on their own, it is very sad and people look for hope all of the time.

I think that the author of this article really cares about poverty because he was so positive about all of the improvements that are being made. The author stated that a man by the name of Bill Gates, the founder of Microsoft has a foundation that donates vaccines and medicine to save children and adults. I think Kristof added this to show what different organizations are pitching in to help people from dying in poverty. "…in his lifetime the number will drop bellow 1 million (Kristof 17). This shows by Microsofts donations the amount of lives that will be saved in his life will be at or above one million.

In conclusion, poverty is a very serious problem worldwide. While there are many people that are slowly starting to get out of poverty, there are many that are still facing the struggle. I think that it is very good that people are helping out in as many ways as they can, but there is still a lot of work to be done.