Poverty and the
Right to Learn
Opening Words by Paul Belanger, President of ICAE
Adult Education and Poverty Reduction: a
Global Priority
By Peggy Antrobus, DAWN,
Adult Education / Lifelong Learning and
Poverty Alleviation
By Kazi Rafiqul Alam Executive Director Dhaka
Inputs by the participants
Adult education, assets, and the reduction of
poverty
Jeanine Anderson (
Gender and Ethnicity/Race: Siamese Twins in
the Fight Against Poverty: A Pedagogical
Challenge
By
Hildezia Medeiros. Ministry for Social Development
and Hunger Relief, Brazil
Inputs by the participants
Women’s Education, Empowerment and Poverty
…… Making the Connections
By Nirantar, India.
Is Africa South of SAHARA. Capable to reverse
the binomial : Illiteracy and Poverty?
By Lamine Kane
Inputs by the participants
A contribution from the Brazilian experience
By Maria
Clara Di Pierro, Açao Educativa, Brazil
Poverty and the right to learn
By Alicia
Villanueva, Movimiento Manuela Ramos, Peru
Inputs by the participants
Investment
on Adult Education and Poverty Reduction: Challenges for Black Women’s
Education in Latin America
By
Eliane Cavalleiro, member
of REPEM Steering Committee, Brazil
Closing
remarks
By Paul Belanger, President of ICAE
Opening Words by Paul Belanger, President of ICAE
I welcome all of you from every corner of this small world for this virtual
seminar.
The gap between poor and rich nations, and social groups are increasing.
Poverty is not an abstract concept, neither is inequality. There are hundred of
millions of women and men who, for weeks, months and even years, have not had
minimal food. This affects their children and their elders. This also means
very concretely that Fatima, Luda or Ali who, though
ill from under-nourishment, have to struggle for the family; and such reality
is repeating itself million times. Similarly, this week, an exhausted Sudanese
family arrived in an overcrowded refugee camp on the border of Chad, and this
situation also repeats itself too often on all continents. This late-modern
tragedy refers also to any young person without shelter and surviving through
begging on the street of his or her town, on every corner of every cities
around the world. This tragedy refers as well to the millions of silent old
women suffering alone in anonymity in insalubrious flats or shelters, surviving
through a ridiculously low pension already eroded through increasing cost of
living.
These are the concrete realities we need to have in mind throughout this
virtual seminar. These unspoken tragedies are taking place in front of
increasing accumulation of wealth, scandalous spending of unlimited resources
for war, narcissist elite flashing extravagantly wealth and power to the
uninformed admiration of the so-called public opinion.
This is the context of our seminar. And when we want to speak of the right and
responsibility to learn, we mean all people. With a concern for those living
under inhuman conditions, so they can increase their capacity for individual
and collective action, we want to address all citizens in order to democratize
the formal democracy of today and ensure that it becomes what it fundamentally
means. Real democracy implies the possibility, through pacific means, to
introduce rule of rights and law, to build societies of solidarity and shared
creativity. In this quest, we will not forget also the need of upper and middle
class citizens for better information and discovery of their contradictory
social conditions. Neither will we forget the various forms and expression
of social, economic and cultural discrimination.
A seminar on poverty and the right to learn, is of course a
seminar on various ways and initiatives to facilitate empowerment of people
living under different conditions, but it is also a seminar on active
citizenship and development of initiatives to construct societies
on the basis of solidarity and people’s creativity. It is a seminar on ways to
produce, bottom-up check and balance mechanisms in a global world run too much
run by search of unshared profit.
The right to learn is the universal right to live and act in an environment
that is turned back on its feet, free from false truth, multicolored and open
to active and diversified forms of participation, as well as enabling us to
build together another possible world.
By
Peggy Antrobus, DAWN,
The causes of poverty are many, and
related to the socio-economic, political and cultural realities of the
populations that experience poverty.
Some of these vary by country and location: among other things these are related to the
history, the available physical and financial resources, technologies, cultural
values and social norms of particular countries and communities. Others factors are common to most
countries. Included in these common
factors are gender relations, race and ethnicity, and the structure of
capitalism. We could say that all of
these factors – the particular as well as the common – embody asymmetric power
relations between groups of people: everywhere, those with the power to command
resources determine their distribution, leaving some groups and sectors poorer than
others.
Trickle-down theories of
economic development – that poverty can be reduced and ultimately be eliminated
by economic growth the benefits of which would trickle down to the poor,
thereby raising incomes - have been proved false. Many other assumptions about poverty
reduction are also false. One of these
is that poverty can be reduced or eliminated by a single strategy such as
literacy and formal education, skills training or micro-credit. But while formal education can help reduce
poverty by helping people to earn an income, education by itself is not a
sufficient condition for elimination of poverty: there are a number of
well-educated people who cannot find employment and therefore earn an
income. Moreover, the income earned by
some is not sufficient to meet their basic needs for food, shelter and
security.
In short, poverty is the result of complex
social, political and economic forces and ultimately embedded in power
relations across all these forces. If
the unequal distribution of resources is a reflection of the unequal
distribution of power, within and between social groups (including men and
women, different racial and ethnic groups, urban and rural communities etc.),
households, communities and countries, then an important approach to poverty
reduction must be one that empowers people to change relationships of power
that prevent them from realizing their full human potential.
Empowerment is the
ability of people to make definitions about their lives and to act on
these. An essential part of this is
people’s understanding of their world, the conditions that shaped their
reality, and what is required of them in order to change their situation. Non-formal or popular (adult) education has a
central role to play in empowerment.
For women, who represent
the majority of the poor in many countries, this kind of conscientisation
must include and understanding of the ways in which the asymmetry of gender
relations contributes to female poverty, and therefore to the poverty of those
households that are dependent on the incomes earned by women.
Another, aspect of adult
education that relates to projects aimed at poverty reduction/elimination is
its role in enabling marginalized groups, especially women to articulate their
priorities. Participatory action
research is an important strategy for doing this.
Because of gender, men and women have
different experiences of poverty (just as those who live in rural areas, with
access to land have a different experience of poverty from that of urban
dwellers, with no access to land on which to build a house or grow food). One of the limitations of poverty reduction
strategies is their focus on income – e.g. one of the targets for the goal of
poverty reduction in the MDGs is to increase the
number of people living on more than $1.00 a day. This ignores the importance of access to
food, housing and services (water and sanitation, health and education) for the
poor. These are priorities for poor
women, moreso than cash. Many, perhaps most, poor women understand
that the low waged jobs and income generating project that are likely to be
provided within poverty reduction project will not be sufficient to guarantee
them access to these essential goods and services.
The link between adult
education and poverty is complex but critical: on the one hand, adult education
(especially non-formal and popular education) builds the capacity of the poor
to understand and change their circumstances, at the same time it can and
should be used by practitioners (in community development, agriculture and
rural development etc) to enable men and women to participate directly in the
identification and design of project for their benefit. Adult education includes popular education as
well as participatory action research.
These aspects of adult education are essential for the empowerment of
the poor.
By Kazi Rafiqul
Alam
Executive Director
Dhaka
1. Human beings for doing anything good to the self and the society must
survive first keep the body and soul together. For survival the people should
be able to meet the minimum of basic needs food, shelter, clothes and we may go
on adding education, health facilities and so on. The concept of poverty originates
here. Poverty has been variously defined generally it is taken to be lack of
resources to have the minimum standard of living and the concept of poverty
differs according to the general economic, social and environmental conditions.
When we talk of poverty in poor economies it is the point of starvation pure
and simple (a standard is being gradually referred an income of less than a
Dollar a day). Poverty in the affluent economies may mean no high-cost fur coat
for the season or rare gadgets at home it may also mean comparative
disadvantage among the affluent. When we talk of reduction of poverty in the
underdeveloped countries, it is mostly in the absolute sense and that is of
absolute importance.
2. Poverty in its absolute sense can be reduced and alleviated. It is
achievable within a short span of time, so short that the poor people concerned
can simultaneously play the role and enjoy the drama.
3. There are some who are of the opinion that poverty cannot be fully explained
in terms of not having enough money, resources or access to material goods
only; it also covers other aspects of life relating to basic human values,
culture and spirit. Poverty in this sense has its ultimate reference to the
full flowering of the human potential in all its many sided manifestations -
physical, intellectual, social cultural, moral, aesthetic and spiritual. To
them, poverty alleviation is a process; it cannot be achieved over night and
once for all. With the changes in the context, human beings need additional
knowledge, skills or capacity to face new phenomenon. To them, poverty
alleviation demands continuous updating of the people’s knowledge, level of
awareness through access to accurate information about the strategic needs for
a better quality life & enabling them to transfer the information into
practice and making decisions to find exit from the poverty situation &
become self-reliant. Sustainable poverty alleviation can be achieved through
addressing the individual needs as well as the needs of the community as a
whole. According to them without comprehensive community development the
individual’s empowerment will not yield much, particularly for socio-political
and cultural change.
4. There is nothing in the foregoing paragraph to disagree. What it indicates
is the impact education or literacy formal or non-formal, may have in
improvement of the quality of life. When we talk of poverty in relative sense
it includes not only lack of materials resources for keeping the body and soul
together but also lack of many ingredients, which go for empowerment and
improvement of quality of life education being first. Because availability of
money or material resources cannot always reduce poverty in that sense or, in
any case, cannot improve the quality of life or empower the people to take full
control of their life.
5. Literacy or Education (used here interchangeably) can be achieved through
both formal and non-formal channels. Literacy and Non-formal Education programmes are alternate or supplementary means to meet the
basic learning needs of the people. The basic learning needs as defined in the
World Declaration (1990) cover knowledge, skills, attitudes and values
necessary for the people to survive, to improve the quality of their lives and
to continue learning. The scope of literacy programmes
for the illiterate poor people cover instilling knowledge, skills and attitudes
in reading, writing and numeracy based on their needs & problems and the scope
of non-formal education should cover all key areas of literacy plus
preparing the children and the neo-literates to continue education of his / her
own choice through different modes of education. The intervention areas of
literacy and non-formal education generally cover: early childhood care and
education, access of all children to primary education, literacy to all
illiterates and continuing & lifelong education.
6. The continuing & life-long education referred to above covers
multi-dimensional needs of the human beings and may be considered to be a
package of educational support services provided or acquired through different
media the ultimate objective of which is to create increased access to
information, so that all people in the society can utilize the information for
improvement of their quality of life. Some examples of this are creating scope
for occupational skills development, development of management skills,
leadership etc. through distance learning, face to face training or
self-learning, attachment / internship etc.
7. The level of literacy or education about which we are talking here is the
level which is considered essential minimum (again it is relative) for
continuous updating of knowledge, information, skills, capacity to face new
phenomenon, transfer of information, to take informed decision by utilizing the
acquired competence in life situation and the like. This is important for
putting the available resources to optimum use to make both ends meet and
improve the quality of life. The potential of literacy and non-formal education
for poverty alleviation becomes evident if the contributions are seen in the
areas like developing self-esteem, economic self-reliance, increased
participation in social activities, health, nutrition & sanitation and
conservation of environment. To ensure effective contribution literacy and for
that matter continuing & lifelong education, there is the need for
qualitative improvement of the delivery mechanism. Experience gained through
small-scale interventions and pilot projects in the different countries of the Asia-Pacific
Region shows that literacy and NFE had a positive impact on poverty reduction.
Many of these programmes however, have not yet taken
on national scale for this or that reason.
8. For developing plans for literacy and basic education programme as an effective
intervention for poverty alleviation, one key issue is identification of the
poverty groups and designing programmes keeping in
mind their poverty characteristics and learning needs. Secondly, the
intervention programme should be multi-faceted covering all avenues of life of
the poor. Since poverty is concentrated in the regions and poverty alleviation programmes demands a regional face, it is safe to develop
region-based literacy and basic education programmes
tuned to poverty situation. In course of developing programmes,
locally appropriate intervention strategies need be designed to ensure active
participation of the people for whom the programme is being planned. A
successful delivery of the programme demands participation of the people in the
decision making process at every stage (planning, implementation and
management). The indicative steps for planning literacy and basic education programmes towards poverty alleviation include
identification of poverty groups, the poverty characteristics and learning
needs, planning appropriate literacy and NFE programmes
on the basis of selected programme areas and strategies.
9. Dhaka Ahsania Mission (DAM)’s Experience: In order
to tackle the twin problems of illiteracy and poverty within a single programme,
Dhaka Ahsania Mission (DAM) implements basic level
education programme for the adults coupled with group management training,
human resource development training and skill development training. This is a
programme with duration of 24 months. Within this period the poor adults
(mostly women) become literate, group them and develop as savings group.
Simultaneously group management training and human resource development
training is provided. DAM then provides skills development training and
prepares them for undertaking income generating activities. The neo-literates
meet every day in the Ganakendra (Peoples’ Centre)
for continuing education. They also meet once a week to discuss group
activities and community problems. In the Ganakendra,
they read books on sanitation, environment, health, family planning, income
generation and other issues and discuss in groups for clear understanding and
practice. DAM’s development programmes
begins with education, proceeds with skills training, flourishes with income generation
activities and ultimately results in environmentally sustainable programme with
improvement in the life situation.
Shaheen Attiqur Rahman. Lahore
BUNYAD is committed for AE.
With nearly 50 million illiterates in Pakistan we have a long road ahead
of us. And, unless Adults, their parents understand the worth of the written
word, no break through is possible.
Iliana Pereyra Sarti
REPEM, LAC
Regarding the
major challenge of analyzing, discussing, synthesizing and generating a virtual
learning space on Poverty and Education, we believe it is essential to make
some reflections on the complexity of the concept of poverty when we
also refer to the poverty suffered by women
There are
questionings on the significance of income in the definition of poverty.
Certainly, the level of income of a person or family can vary from month to
month, even from week to week, while poverty is a durable condition – let’s
bear in mind that unstable work is a characteristic of a major part of the poor
Latin American population -, however, in addition, and always referring to
economic terms, income is insufficient if the quantitative and qualitative
aspects – patrimony- are not also taken into consideration.
Currently, for men
as well as for women, the training level, the mastering of a trade, the social
relations – as ways of social insertion – are fundamental parts of a patrimony
of goods and qualities of unquestionable economic importance. Proof of this is
how this patrimony – or its absence- decisively determines productive capacity,
participation in the economic system, and the corresponding quota of power with
which this is carried out.
More “social”
definitions of poverty comprehend other aspects, such as access to health care,
education, and social services, among others.
Other
characteristics that are frequently mentioned as linked to the situation of
poverty are attitudes, feelings and beliefs that work as psychological and
social barriers, such as: personal loss of value, lack of knowledge on the
rights, and therefore lack of exercise of these rights, scarce or null
participation; all of which nurture and perpetuate poverty.
Countless studies
have demonstrated that, in relation to this issue, there are disadvantages that
affect women in particular. Indeed, their responsibilities regarding
reproductive tasks, not only at biological level (pregnancy, childbirth and
breast-feeding), but also at social level –child raising, education, feeding,
and the care of children and the elderly- hinder critically poor women’s access
to the labour market and their full insertion in it,
with obvious consequences in their possibilities to access income generation.
Moreover, in case
this happens, the long working hours affect women’s possibilities to use their
time, as well as their life quality.
In the case of
poor women, a kind of a vicious circle can be noticed. On the one hand, gender
relations situate them in a secondary and subordinate place, and on the other
hand, poverty sharpens their feelings of loss of value, whether because of a
dependent life, confined to their homes, whether because of their dedication to
unqualified, badly paid jobs. Perhaps because of both things.
Further aspects
sum up to the afore-mentioned, such as the lack of knowledge on and exercise of
their rights, such as for example the rights related to care-giving and upkeep
of their children; domestic violence; and the usufruct of the services; this
generates an accumulation. Some
researchers point out an identical impact on the lack of participation in
spheres where it is possible to have access to information, employment and
training possibilities.
Summarizing, even
if with analytical purposes, it may be necessary to speak about the components of
poverty; it is clear that poverty becomes itself a global phenomenon in which
multiple aspects, which can be discerned, are intertwined in a tangle of
relations that constitute an indissoluble whole.
Perhaps we should
ask ourselves:
Which are the personal
and collective educational processes that will be capable of deactivate this
tangle of causal relations?
Are they merely
educational processes?
H.S. Bhola
Professor Emeritus (Indiana University)
I would like to share the following with the world adult education
community interested in global poverty:
1. We cannot carry much water, very far, in a
sieve. "Poverty reduction" would not work unless accompanied
with committed efforts to stall and stop systematic and sustained efforts of
"poverty induction" - poverty being structurally, culturally,
communally induced and inflicted on the lives of the powerless sections of
societies.
1.1 While poverty reduction work is typically visible, local
and regional, poverty induction is more abstract and therefore invisible. Yet
it is real and has to be fought at all the levels from the global down to the
local: fighting neo-liberal economics of structural adjustments and users fees
for education and health; national policies of regressive taxation, and
resistance to land reform and workers' wages; and local tyrannies and
exploitations in communities and within families.
1.1.1 This means that adult educators today have to be
educators-and-activists who work not only with adult groups of learners and in
community organization but also work in the political arenas in district
councils, national legislatures, and the old and new mechanisms of global
governance: lobbying for Globalization with a Human Face, Endogenous
Development definitions and theories; Markets with social responsibility; the
necessity of the state role in social welfare; land reform, progressive
taxation systems, and ... yes! establishment of institutional spaces for
learning throughout life, that is, institutions of adult education to enable
learning throughout life.
2. No "Self" is truly self-made! Self
is socialized by the other in a web of social interactions. Without the
organized institution of the family to socialize its young, individual
identities get fractured.
2.1 What is true about the making of self-hood is also true
of self-learning. There are serious limits to learning through
self-discovery. "Self-directed, lifelong learning" is
inspirational but practically impossible. Maybe in a future Utopia,
adults will become
self-directed learners, but in the developing countries, for decades to come,
adult education will be needed for adult learning to have a chance of
actualization. The need is of "Adult education now, to make adult
learning possible later!"
2.2 Adult educators-cum-activists must pay lot of attention
to creating institutional mechanisms for adult education that may make
adult learning possible - - state and non-state, for profit and
non-profit, local, regional, national and international, face-to-face
and at a distance.
2.2.1 I have noted with regret and a sad sense of irony that in too many
places the new phraseology of "adult learning" has been used by
bureaucrats to wash their hands of the state responsibility to provide
education to adults for them to participate in processes of democratization and
modernization. Adults are being asked to do their own learning - - know
what to learn and how to acquire that learning!
Sincerely,
H.S. Bhola
Jeanine Anderson (Peru)
There is a notable return of interest, in today’s
poverty studies, to the question of assets.
This has occurred for various reasons.
As always tends to occur, some of the reasons have to do with the
failure of other approaches to reduce poverty. Certainly, employment-based
strategies, or social rights strategies, have strict limits, not necessarily
because of intrinsic shortcomings but because of the context in which poverty
reduction has to occur in the contemporary world. The storm of neoliberalism
has still not passed and, even if it had, government deficits, global economic
restructuring, recessions, political turbulence, and ineffective public
administration would still be problems.
Asset-based approaches to poverty reduction are easy to make compatible
with market-oriented development philosophies.
They are also compatible with “agency” and “empowerment” as values.
Some further factors help to explain why assets have
come to the foreground in our thinking about poverty and ways to overcome it:
Assets are portable and flexible, and thus seem to be
attuned to wildly changing worlds of work, technology, communications, society,
and political action. Portfolios of
assets can be constantly reshaped to meet new challenges. People can learn new things, make new friends
(acquiring “social capital”), master new technologies, add new political
strategies for new situations and opponents.
The life histories of poor people demonstrate that they do, in fact,
constantly worry about gaining new assets of many types; and they spend large
quantities of resources to do it.
Assets usually imply long-term investment and
long-term engagement. They direct our attention to processes over time:
accumulation, saving, preserving, avoiding accidents and loss. This is resonant with new research on poverty
that focuses on longitudinal effects.
Poverty reduction strategies in the past often failed because of their
short-term bias.
Assets allude to incorporation and inclusion. Most societies operate on a logic (and legal
framework) of accumulating assets, insuring and protecting assets, and
transmitting assets to descendents and to causes which the asset owners
consider valuable. Poor people
themselves phrase the problem of poverty in these terms: poverty means not
having assets, being unable to get them, and being excluded or discriminated
against on that basis. Assets make
people stakeholders and force other stakeholders to pay attention to them.
Although we usually think of assets as “belonging” to
a person or, at most, a household or family, many assets actually involve
groups. Having them or being able to use
them may depend on group identities such as membership in a tribe, caste, or
nation. Such assets include “social
assets” and “cultural assets.” It may
not always be clear how these kinds of group assets connect with economic
prosperity, even to poor people themselves.
In the past, discussions about poverty and wealth have
focused on physical assets: buildings, equipment, money. The challenge now is to understand the full
range of assets that non-poor people have and, therefore, the range of assets
that poor people might need in order to leave poverty. Many assets that give immense advantages to
the rich and powerful are hidden and invisible, even secret. Often these have to do with knowledge,
information, analytical capacity, expertise and advice. These are among the assets that are easiest
to hide.
We are just beginning to understand the diverse and
complicated routes that people use to acquire assets in the realm of education,
information, analysis and understanding.
It is clear that, even for children, most learning takes place outside
formal schools; so much more is that true for adults. Schooling seems to be a facilitator, in some
way. It seems to teach habits and skills
that help people to assimilate and process new information, or that help them
to interpret it and make it available for use.
Formal instruction may teach self-confidence, since it turns learning
into something that can be measured and evaluated, thus enabling the learners
themselves to be convinced that they know what they know. It may be that knowing you have an asset is
equally important to having the asset in order for that asset to make a
difference.
Adult education for the reduction of poverty,
therefore, has to contain an element of formal education. Nevertheless, most of it will undoubtedly
come through informal channels. Who
should be responsible for it?
Professional educators can never be sufficient to cover the entire range
of settings where we would want adult learning to occur. They have to make room for, and cooperate
with, many others:
- Journalists,
news reporters
- Media
/ entertainment
- Political
leaders
- Social
movement innovators
- Institutions
and their leadership
- People
in their everyday lives: support groups, daily conversations, discussions
and arguments, marches and demonstrations, and other spontaneous formats
All of these learning sources appear in the discourse
of urban poor people in Peru. I am
struck by how three learning situations were absolutely vital in the life
histories of rural campesinos who migrated to the
cities in the great waves of urbanization of the 1950’s, 60’s and 70’s. One was labor unions, another was political
parties, and the third was neighborhood organizations. Later, development projects came in, with a
mandate to bring more women into the discussion. All of these stimulated an active exchange
among the migrants, who were trying to understand how they might best position
themselves in an entirely new context with a new set of opportunities and
limitations.
Unfortunately, many or most of the situations where
adults could learn and reflect are controlled by groups that have a product to
sell. The “learners” are being preached
to, recruited, addressed by “experts” who tell them what is correct. The “teaching” is biased, one-sided; it is
advertising and rhetoric. This danger
could be reduced if, collectively, we could expand the range of formats for
teaching and learning and constantly strive to make them more dialogic. From early childhood to the end of life,
formats for education have to encourage and enable back and forth
exchanges.
Adults are people who have learned how to
negotiate. To one degree or another,
they have learned to consider the other’s arguments and points of view. Learning and education, however, are too
often associated with absolute truth.
This tends to remove educational assets from the realm of activities
that people carry out in the real world, with other people, reconciling the
interests of one and the other.
Education, knowledge, and intellectual labor are on one side of a
dividing line; practical problem solving is on the other. The formats that we put forward for adult
education ought to break down that divide.
A further problem is the way men and women living in
poverty are actively prevented from learning things that could be useful for
getting out of poverty. This is not only
because wealthy and powerful groups have an interest in keeping the poor in
their place, although that definitely plays a part. But it also is a consequence of not
developing and promoting adult education as a clear priority. People pick up useful information but cannot
integrate it with other information; they learn skills that they cannot apply
in their work or family life. In this
sense, some educational assets, which cost a great deal to acquire, are wasted
and irrelevant. Here too, governments
and institutions could do much more to orient poor women and men to learning
experiences that could be truly useful to them.
Assets – even educational assets – can be lost. As some kinds of assets become more common
and diffused throughout a society, they lose value; computer skills might be an
example, at least in urban poverty sectors and among poor youth. Through manipulating images, artificial gluts
and scarcities can be created. Some
assets become obsolete and must be replaced or renewed. The search for ways to increase the
educational assets of the poor, therefore, is never ending, as long as poverty
exists. It is not a simple matter of
organizing literacy classes and pushing the graduates out into the world.
A final question concerning assets has to do with
their convertibility. In promoting the
expansion of educational assets as one way of reducing poverty, we are assuming
that several conversions are possible:
- Educational
assets (can be converted) into economic advantage and material
wealth. With such assets, people
will be able to work more productively, make good decisions about their
economic strategies, evaluate risks, promote their interests and avoid
crises.
- Educational
assets (can be converted) into political assets and power. With such assets, people can increase
their capacity to influence political decisions and choose political
leaders that will work effectively for the poor.
- Educational
assets (can be converted) into recognition and prestige
- Educational
assets (can be converted) into happiness and fulfillment: a good life, as
that is understood in many different cultural traditions.
This last conversion may be the most difficult of all. Nonetheless, understanding and “wisdom” has a high value in most societies. Many poor people suffer greatly from the sense that their lives are insignificant, but also from the sense that they cannot understand the injustices, the ill-will of the powerful, and the arbitrariness they experience. So, ideally, a program for adult ed