Drew Jensen is Global Citizen’s 2015 Curtis Scholar. The scholarship provides an immersive experience highlighting effective development programs focused on sanitation, girls and women, and education. Drew is traveling with Global Poverty Project staff, meeting key partners and working in India. Below are photos and blog entries from Drew’s journey. This is day 4, follow the rest of his trip here.
Every day I spend in India seems to outdo the one before. On day 4, Hilary and my schedule was left open in the morning so that we could go to the Taj Mahal and experience a city other than New Delhi. The Taj is in Agra, which is a bit of a drive so around 6am, we woke up and hitched a ride south.
As we began to hit the outskirts of Delhi, we began to see signs for new high-rise apartments that were both just recently built or are still being worked on along the freeway that connects Delhi and Agra. As we began to reach the towns just outside Delhi, we started to see these massive, modern, Western looking buildings. Of the ones that were complete, most were hardly occupied. You could tell because these were very nice, expensive buildings so the units that were occupied had lots of furniture and carpets and such on their decks, but most of the apartments appeared empty. I thought maybe I was looking too much into this, but then I noticed that there were very few cars in the open-face parking garage as well, thus confirming my suspicion.
Contrast of the new buildings and the slums.
This was a very striking thing to witness, because surrounding these new high rises were areas of poverty the likes of which I had yet to see. There were countless make-shift homes and people sleeping on the streets within just a few hundred yards of the nicest residences I had seen so far in India.
Sanitation problems in the slums.
We must to continue our work on sanitation programs to insure that those living in the area where I'm standing have the same opportunity for good health as those living in the high rises across the street. Groundwater quality has a disproportionate effect on those in poverty.
Observing this massive disparity in wealth and lifestyle delivered two very strong messages of very different tones. The first thing that came to mind was how much work we still have left to do as global itizens. As a whole, humanity has yet to come anywhere close to converting our economic capacity into an adequate standard of living for all people. Some may see it as naive to believe in food, shelter, healthcare, sanitation, and education as universal human rights--I just don't happen to be one of them. I don't want to turn this into a discussion of economics or philosophy, but the reality is that our global economy is most certainly not one that holds justice and human dignity as its top priorities.
If we could simply reshape our perceptions of possibility to reflect the capacity that actually exists in our global economy, we would live in a more empathetic world. How do we do this? We continue to push for public discourse with regard to global poverty, we continue to advocate for expanded funding to social programs, and we hold our leaders accountable to the values that we have as global citizens.
Yet, there is another way to perceive those empty high-rises; a way that points to a bright future. Developers are often smart people with great foresight. Bearing this in mind, one would be led to believe that the developers that built these complexes see a day in the near future where those buildings are full. And that means that our efforts are already working, for the only way that those buildings will ever get filled, is if there are educated, prosperous people to fill them, and that is what the future holds here in India.
So I prefer that view. The one where the children I've seen in the slums finish school and one day and fill those vacancies. While there is still so much work to do, it's also plain to see that India is rising. That is reason to both celebrate, and work that much harder alongside our friends here at organizations like tGELF and Youth Ki Awaaz.
As one of my favorite songs goes: "You've got to admit it's getting better.....a little better all the time."
Oh and by the way.....The Taj Mahal was pretty cool!
Here are some of my photos from the day:
The beauty and history of the Agra Fort is awe inspiring. We can learn so much about the importance of foresight and planning from the Agra Fort's built in drainage and sanitation systems that still work today.
Observing the beauty of the Taj from Agra Fort.
Wet from the monsoon, but I'm still happy.
Hilary and I enjoying the beauty of the Taj.