'Staying alive for another day'.

• Author: Flamm, Mikel
• Position: Poverty

FOR OVER 3 BILLION of the global population of 6.5 billion, poverty is a way of life. It has many faces for those who live amidst its clutches-the two most visible are the faces of hunger and lack of shelter.

An estimated 640 million people live without proper shelter and 1 billion children worldwide, roughly one in two, live in poverty, with over 10 million dying each year before the age of five. Poverty is also the fear of uncertainty, of not knowing when the next meal will come or how to care for a sick child when there is no money to buy medicine. Entire generations live and die with no idea of how or where to seek help, often wondering if anyone would listen anyway to their hardships.

Years ago on a trip to Bangladesh, I met a 13-year-old girl in a small clinic in the capital city of Dhaka with her mother. She was suffering from tuberculosis and third-degree malnutrition, and looked as though she might not make it any longer than a few days. The doctors said there was little hope for her survival, so they sent her home.

A few days later, I met a woman who cared for special cases through her organization. I told her of the young girl and she agreed to care for her. Within two months, the girl recovered. Through this case, I learned that there are ways to address poverty: one of them is not to give up hope.

On three recent trips to China, the Philippines and Bangladesh for Habitat for Humanity International, I visited communities, where people lived in dire conditions on very little subsistence. Survival is a day-to-day struggle for them, often with no end in sight.

Shanty communities in Dhaka line the river ways that link the city at various points. Condensed pockets of poor communities rise up and grow until living spaces are confined and overcrowded, and with this condition comes the inability to find work on a frequent basis, as families work on daily labour or construction jobs. One such community within metro Dhaka is Ray's Bazar, a series of small one-room shacks made of bamboo, tin, plastic and thatch. An open sewer follows the length of one side of the community, which consists of four rows of 62 dirt-floor rooms, each measuring 4 by 10 feet. The crowded living conditions, in addition to the lack of sanitation and privacy, are common throughout the poor communities in this city.

With a population of over 138 million, Bangladesh is one of the poorest, most densely populated countries in the world, with roughly 47 per cent living...