{"content":[{"text":"as differentiated from ‘liberation education.’ He condemned the ‘banking system of \n education,’ in which the teacher simply dumps knowledge in the head of the students, \n and advocated instead for liberation education, in which the teacher engages the \n students as co-interrogators reflecting on an object. So, I find it intriguing to see that \n rather than having ‘researchers’ try to study the situation in which those subjected to \n poverty are caught up, as is the way of traditional research about poverty, those \n subjected to poverty are themselves co-interrogators of their condition. And I think that \n this itself is liberating for those subjected to poverty, for their ability to comprehend their \n situation is enhanced by this process, and once they can understand their condition \n clearly, as a systemic and structural problem, it becomes easier for them to act in a \n manner to change this condition. This approach to studying poverty and oppressive \n conditions, I think, should be further emphasized going forward.","bbox":{"left":0.11781,"top":0.09146,"width":0.764578,"height":0.20859400000000006}},{"text":"The language of the report – in which there is a pronounced rejection of the label ‘poor,’ \n which, as it now appears to me clearly, relegates or denies the person-hood of the \n individual(s) subjected to poverty – is noteworthy. And this shift needs to be encouraged \n across the board – I mean among people confronting poverty, opinion formers, and \n even those subjected to poverty. When we don’t just refer to those subjected to poverty \n as ‘the poor,’ it makes it easier for people to not just passively accept the condition of \n poverty as a historical reality or an inherent attribute of those subjected to poverty. \n People are able to reflect on the horrific situation that poverty means and the complicity \n of the entire society in its persistence. The focus shifts, and the shame of poverty shifts \n from those subjected to poverty to those defending systems that create poverty. It \n results in more compassion for the plight of those subjected to poverty. Since reading \n the report, I have started using the phrase ‘people/person subjected to poverty’ instead \n of ‘the poor.’ I know that – as with most cases in which an attempt is made to change \n how we use language to romanticize immorality and reduce the gravity of vices – these \n preferred phrases may be considered wordy by some, but they strike me as more \n accurate. And I think that they would strike many in the same manner.","bbox":{"left":0.11781,"top":0.315703,"width":0.7643960000000001,"height":0.278291}},{"text":"The report affirms that the existence of poverty burdens the entire society. My personal \n experience, reflections and readings confirm this to be true. I have said before that the \n hierarchical stratification of our society – as it is today, in which some persons lavish in \n flagrant opulence while many others lavish in misery – debases those made to wallow in \n lack, depraves those made to hole-up in illusory privileges, and diminishes us all. Within \n every human subjected to poverty, are latent talents which are more likely to be never \n discovered and/or developed and/or harnessed. And the less the community – whether \n we define it as a country or the whole of humanity – is able to harness the talents of its \n constituents, the less progress it is likely to witness, and the more burden of frustration, \n dejection and violence borne of the inability to give expression to innate potentials it \n would have to bear. And this point was made during the conversation we had at the \n University of Ibadan, on 17th of October, 2019, as part ATD Fourth World’s \n commemoration of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, that the \n implications of the existence of poverty are burdens for the entire society, and that the \n responsibility for the overcoming of poverty is a collective one for us all – as individual \n countries and as an indivisible human race.","bbox":{"left":0.11781,"top":0.609642,"width":0.7633110000000001,"height":0.27829099999999996}}],"images_bbox":[],"images_bbox_not_text_overlap":[]}