Could you imagine going every day without someone greeting you with a simple hello or motioning a friendly gesture? Unfortunately, it’s a reality for much of the world’s poor.

This past January, I had the opportunity to stay in Dum Dum, Kolkata, with the Christian Brothers to learn and identify specific needs within developing communities. An Australian by the name of Mr. Jim, who lived and taught at the brother’s school, asked me to accompany him on his nightly round of delivering food and blankets to the homeless at the local train station. Little did I know, this experience would entirely change my view of poverty.

Mr. Jim was the type of person you could listen to without interruption for hours. His knowledge of the community allowed me to understand the cultural barriers and social injustices that people faced. Delivering the food and blankets was helpful for the community, but Mr. Jim made it clear that it wasn’t the most important thing he did. Something as little as putting his hand on someone’s back could make more of an impact than leaving the obvious supplies.

We weren’t just going to serve the homeless, we were going to interact with the untouchables.

The term “untouchable” originated within the caste system to refer to people who are considered worthless to society. Today, social mobility and participation in government are virtually non-existent in lower castes, even though discrimination has been outlawed. Scholar Alex Ninian’s article, “India’s Untouchables: The Dalits”, notes that the number of Dalits ranges between 180 and 220 million, which equates to about twenty percent of the total Indian population. From this, an approximated 40 million are considered to be bonded workers: people who work to pay off the debts of their ancestors.

As we started walking up and down the tracks while trains were passing, Mr. Jim and I approached a man lying on the rocky soil beneath the station. The man sat there and looked at us as if he had never seen another human being before. Mr. Jim turned to me and explained that no one ever talks to him. He receives no love, no affection and barely any human interaction. When we asked him his name in Bengali,  he could barely speak, but mumbled the word “Tiny.” Mr. Jim explained it was a nickname people had given him based on his physical condition. Because he was a poor and crippled man, he appeared tiny to those who passed him by.

Spending five minutes with those who received little to no interaction made a noticeable difference. The majority of the people we touched on the back or shoulder smiled at us and put their hands out for us to touch. One man even got up to put his hand over my head so that he could bless me. His blessing had transformed my thinking.

It seemed as if every barrier between us had been broken. Here we stood; two men from opposite sides of the globe, with extremely different economic and cultural backgrounds exchanging nothing but the acknowledgement and recognition of our presence in each others lives. It was a beautiful moment.

When we returned to the school, I had difficulty processing what just happened. Was it simply the power of human interaction or the fact that I was blessed by a man who had been forgotten by society?

In order to understand this, I thought about the teachings of Mother Teresa who explains such feeling with three simple quotes:

“We think sometimes that poverty is only being hungry, naked, and homeless. The poverty of being unwanted, unloved and uncared for is the greatest poverty. We must start in our own homes to remedy this kind of poverty”

Aid has helped lift millions out of poverty, but those being served are often forgotten on an individual level. Challenge yourself to physically partake in charity, whether by volunteering at a soup kitchen in your local town or talking with someone who may need help.

Always share your smile and lend a hand when needed because you never know what it can bring. When I passed the untouchables I could have chosen to judge them by their withdrawn attitudes and dirty clothes, but by engaging with them, I saw their innate beauty as individuals.

“We ourselves feel that what we are doing is just a drop in the ocean. But the ocean would be less because of that missing drop”

The world is a big place, and people sometimes think their  actions don’t matter. Well, they do… If you aren’t there to do your part, who is? Mr. Jim has been doing his nightly runs for years and continues to do it to this day. Your actions could inspire others like Jim’s actions have inspired me.

Oh, and by the way, Mr. Jim is almost 100 years old...

"I want you to be concerned about your next door neighbor. Do you know your next door neighbor?"

I’m not asking you to start hanging out with your neighbors all the time, but I am asking that you start interacting a little bit more with people in your own community. Think about a need that you can identify and take action on it. 

Poverty isn't just about lacking the physical necessities, it often involves feelings of alienation and emptiness.

Human connection has the power to break that form of poverty.