Embracing Poverty with Lifelong Learning

Abstract

AbstractPoverty is a multidimensional phenomenon that includes social, economic, political, and educational concepts, each of which affects differently people who suffer either from chronic or temporary poverty or are in a situation of falling into poverty in the short run. The concept of poverty is not solely the situation of having low income but it is also connected to no access to services such as health, education, and technology, lack of a stable and acceptable social identity including confidence and dignity, homelessness, social exclusion in teams and networks with specific characteristics as well as to low and limited access to assets such as financial and human capital. Lifelong learning can play a key role in facing poverty of any kind. It has the capacity to positively affect vulnerable people by offering them opportunities for risk-taking, for fighting for their rights of gaining support from the governmental mechanisms, for recognizing their identity, and being released from the guilt that society imparts to them. This research study seeks to highlight the power of lifelong learning to help poor people learn more and understand more of the difficult circumstances they are usually forced to face. Furthermore, it aims to point out how lifelong learning can provide them with social resilience to social suffering and furthermore, how it can enrich and enhance the quality of their life.KeywordsPovertyLifelong learningSocial identitySocial resilienceRisk-takingQuality of life