By Fred M’membe
Many of us have lived in poverty both as children and as adults, and we can say with full confidence that it is a life-crushing force. We hated it.
Poverty is despair and desperation-inducing. Poverty is soul, dream and hope crushing. Poverty is like being enclosed in a prison cell with no doors or windows. It feels claustrophobic, as if there is no way out. Only the most resilient do not give up. Still, there is no guarantee that life will get better—and those in poverty know this all too well. They either become hardened or submit to fate. You don’t live life, you don’t thrive—you survive. You wonder if you are predestined, like a caste in another country, to live out a life destitute of fulfilment—whether financial, professional or just having a better life.
These are the very thoughts that consumed many of us in times of poverty. And yet, we never stopped believing that there must be a way out. The very thing that brought despair and darkness motivated us to dig out of that prison, to fight with everything within us, to find that light that must exist outside of the walls.
Available official government statistics show that poverty levels stand at 20.2 per cent in Lusaka, 30.9 per cent on the Copperbelt Province, 56.2 per cent in Central Province, 57.6 per cent in Southern Province, 66.4 per cent in North-Western Province, 69.3 per cent in Muchinga Province, 70 per cent in Eastern Province, 79.7 per cent in Northern Province, 81.1 per cent in Luapula Province, and Western province at 82.2 per cent.
Compatriots, these are extreme poverty levels by any standard. A better life is certainly possible. But we have to struggle for a Just, fair and equitable Zambia.
Poverty
Let us define it.
Is a person who has nothing to eat but has television and a mobile phone and drinks beer worth K100 per week poor?
Interesting article? Until you find out it was written by Uncle Fred who clearly belongs to the top 1% earners in the country. Hypocrite!
Hh is busy flying around wasting tax payers money when our people go without food. I thought hh was a self made billionaire, why doesn’t he refuse to use govt allowance and sacrifice his own money surely? Greed. Ayina noyina mambaIa
Fred Mmembe if you follow that path of politics you will be bundled together with your PF cousins. Come up with your policy how you can convince people to elect your party.
Poverty indeed is our number one enemy but it is definitely not tax dodger Mmembe who will deliver us from poverty.
Sadly Fred M’membe is not showing us the how of getting out of poverty. It’s not M’membe’s usual way of looking at this issue by examining the conduct of most those in poverty. They try very hard no doubt but they do not work in a way that reduces avoidable risks. Where are cooperatives among our people? Everyone wants to work alone or with close family members. Where’s honesty among our people whn they’re supplying to their own government? Let’s not just look at the external environment. Our society is also to blame to some extent.
This is a good wake up call to embrace change of mind set and resolve to bear full responsibility and face poverty head on. Complain will not bring a grain to our tables.