By Maggie Krol – Straight.com
Nine Canadian cities will participate in the annual World Partnership Walk this Sunday (May 25) to raise funds for impoverished people in Africa and Asia.
It is Canada’s largest annual event dedicated to fighting global poverty, started by volunteers from Vancouver’s Ismaili Women’s Organization Committee in 1985. Since then, an impressive $40 million has been raised with 100 percent donated to international development initiatives. The participating cities include Victoria, Vancouver, Edmonton, Calgary, London, Kitchener, Toronto, Montreal and Ottawa.
Fundraisers such as the above raise awareness and achieve incredible goals to aid people in need around the world. But I can’t help but think of the poverty that exists in our own city, specifically for single mothers.
A recent study by Statistics Canada titled “Life After Teen Motherhood”, concluded that education curbed the negative impact of teen motherhood on the labour force. This means that women who gave birth in their teens and have less than a high-school diploma are just as likely not to be employed full-time as women with the same level of education who had children later in life.
If the bottom line is education, how are single parents, lacking time and money while raising a child, supposed to afford school?
What concerns me are Canada’s housing shortages, displaced peoples, and struggling single mothers. To be frank, it’s despicable that such situations even exist. It feels like a never-ending Rubik’s cube that keeps morphing into something unrecognizable every time you draw near to a solution, leaving you all thumbs with only more questions than before.
The fact that poverty is a reality does not come as a surprise to anyone. In Poland, where I grew up, it is seen not only in neighborhoods, but on people’s faces. I’m left feeling humbled to know that the hardship endured by my grandparents and parents resonates both in my and younger generations, thanks to storytelling and a close sense of family and community.
To make a difference in even one person’s day, never mind life, is something we can all step up to, if we are willing to help those with whom we share our city. Through awareness and action, we can bring the common thread running through each of us closer.
Ismailimail 