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Quinta-feira, Fevereiro 03, 2005

COPAR And The Culture Of Poverty

Yesterday, my professor in one major subject introduced to class the Community Organizing Participatory Action Research (COPAR). I don't exactly know what it is yet but I suppose it's just like an expanded version of community organizing. Community organizing is a process whereby the community members develop the capability to assess their health needs and problems, plan and implement actions to solve these problems, put up and sustain organizational structures which will support and monitor implementation of health initiatives by the people (Maglaya, 2004). That isn't as easy as it seems since this involves many phases and at the same time it takes a long time to accomplish this goal. But its effectiveness is long-term, as the people would learn how to be self-reliant when difficulties arise.

So my teacher said that the candidates in COPAR are the indigent communities as they lack the ability to cope with their problems. She's right about that. But when she said afterward that the poor are very OPEN about this thing we call CHANGE... I did not agree with her, so did my seatmate Bien.

It reminded me about my sociology class, which Bien and I took two semesters ago. I remember how pretty my sociology instructor was. Despite the acne on her face and all, I loved how she smiles and how she flaunts her pompous, highfalutin words with her practice-made-perfect British accent ("Normal-LEY class, in So-CIO-lo-GEY..."). Anyway, in her class I learned about the anthropologist Oscar Lewis and his theory of the culture of poverty.

Oscar Lewis (1914-70) argued that poverty is not merely a state of being deprived economically, but it has a life of its own and its consequences are difficult to overcome. The culture of poverty grows in societies with similar sets of conditions. So although he introduced this theory while studying poor families in Mexico and Puerto Rico and New York, in this place called Metro Manila, where the economy is poor, the wages are low, the unemployment rates are high... we can say that there is also a culture of poverty here.

Tevye from Fiddler in the Roof says, "Oh dear Lord! You make many, many poor people!" If you ever wonder why it is so here in the metropolis, culture of poverty tends to pass down continuously from generation to generation because of its influence to children. Lewis maintains that when the time comes that these poor children reach the age 6 or 7, they often have inculcated in their minds the 'basic values and attitudes' of their subculture and at the same time are not really prepared to cope with the changing situations in the capitalistic society. They 'misbehave' because they also would not adopt the values and goals of the middle-class that would get them out of poverty.

Moreover, the people in poor communities, according to his theory, have inclinations to 'present-mindedness' and 'obsessive-consumption'. Their time horizon is short (present-minded) unlike those in the idealized cultures. While the upper classes save for their children's education and future, the less fortunate often do not save or invest, but they take pleasure when money is available (obsessive-consumption).

While it may be true that we can't teach an old dog new tricks, there has to be some way to make them open to change.


Carnaval took a nap at 8:52:00 PM

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