DEFINITION OF POVERTY

Swanepoel & De Beer (2011)- ‘A situation where the next meal or absence of that meal means the difference between life and death. Starvation is clearly the most telling element of poverty where income is so low that food, shelter & personal necessities cannot be maintained’.

‘Poverty is pain. Poor people suffer pain that comes with too little food and long hours of work; emotional pain stemming from daily humiliations of dependency and lack of power; and the moral pain from being forced to make choices-such as whether to use limited funds to save the life of an ill member, or to use those same funds to feed their children’ (Narayan et al., 2000:3 in Taylor & Triegaardt, 2018:129).

Poverty usually means, the poor are often hungry, malnourished, living in substandard housing with no running water & often exposed to rats, cockroaches & other worms & insects that live on bodies of people/animals and carry diseases and the lack of opportunity to improve oneself socially, emotionally and/or educationally. The poor are, often affected by dysfunctional /unstable marriages, poor housing that does not prevent too much heat in summer, too much cold in winter & leakages during rainy days. They hardly afford luxuries/finer things like travelling for holidays, dining out, movies, theatres, concerts and some sports events (Zastrow, 2010).