The Orchid School

Indo-US Online Collaboration Project on World Poverty

In the 2nd week of the US collaboration, our children extensively researched various aspects of poverty.They discussed and debated on topics related to poverty in the local areas and their Dharavi Visit. Finally, they were able to put their thoughts together for 2 presentations entitled " Poverty in India - A Statistical Approach" and 
" Dharavi- A case study "



Please Click Links below for the presentations & Video :

Presentation 1.

Presentation 2.

Video Link.

Dear Parents,

A group of Class X students from The Orchid School is currently working on 3- week online collaboration project with Forest Hills High School, North Carolina on the World Poverty.

The project started on 7th April 2014 .In this collaboration, the students of both schools get to watch common presentations on Global Poverty. They get an opportunity to ask questions to the presenters and research on poverty locally.

Our children have visited the local areas to understand the lives of the people living below the poverty line. The students get to upload their research in form of presentations and videos as a part of the collaboration.

It is an excellent opportunity for the students to go beyond the geographical, economic and social borders and develop sensitivity for global concerns. The students get an opportunity for live interaction with the partner school in US to exchange their views and learning on this topic.

Our students had numerous questions for the presenters. We would like to share few samples of the questions our students put up and answers given by the presenters.

Q1.) Is there a relation between poverty and crime rate in any country? Do poor people tend to follow the wrong path quite often?

Ans. We received quite an informative reply for eminent Economist Dr Geetha Vaidyanathan -"While it seems logical to state that poor people will likely follow the wrong path, the findings by researchers are mixed. 
An interesting finding on this relationship is reported in Messner (1982) who found that poverty rates reduced crime rates in his sample. One can name countries which have somewhat high poverty rates and high crime rates. The United States is an example. One can also name countries which have significant poverty rates but low crime rates. 28% of Singaporeans live in poverty but Singapore has very low crime rates. 
Poverty, income inequality, type of legal institutions (law and order), and quality of governance are likely factors that jointly affect crime rates.
As a side note, I want to also add that one can find "criminals" who come from wealthy families in both poor and rich countries. Individuals who commit "white collar crimes" are also criminals.
Sadly, US has a very high poverty rate in the developed world (16%). The US also has very high income equality in the developed world. Politics largely drives economic policy in the US. Furthermore, politics is driven by lobbyists from corporations. Hence tax policies generally favor the rich.

In recent years, there have been significant cuts in spending on programs for the poor. When one looks at how income inequality has behaved in the US since the mid 1980s, it is very alarming. The divide between the rich and the poor has been on the rise. 
An individual who is willing to work full-time at the minimum wage will live in poverty in the U.S. Some argue that the minimum wage is very low and has to be revised upwards. But it is very hard to increase minimum wage due to lack of political support.

Q2.) How are the poor people socially treated in the Developed countries?

Ans. "Poorer populations in any country tend to be marginalized in many different ways. Often times the poor are under-represented or misrepresented in policy, law, popular culture and many other aspects of society. 

That being said it is important that we don't generalize and to recognize that we are not experts in this field. We can only speak from our experience in the United States where, as in any country, there are many different types of people that make up "the poor". They might be treated differently depending on their race, age, gender, and countless other factors beyond their economic status......"

That’s all for now parents! 

Watch this space, we will update new developments as it happens.

-TOS Team