Mickel Hoback

Social Justice

This week’s reading covered social justice and the global community. In the text it discussed how global issues such as poverty and economic inequality affect everyone. It also discussed the economic inequality right here in the United States in which the gap between the very rich and the very poor is becoming more clear every day. This can be seen in the recent protest around the world. In the middle east long times regimes have fallen and here in the United States people have since formed the “Occupy Movement”. Many times when asked the leaders of these movements have mentioned the growing gap between the rich and the poor as one of the main points of their movements. Even as the Presidential race heats up we have heard of issues concerning this same thing. Almost everyone of us has heard of Herman Cains 999 plan which has caught on like wild fire in an attempt to minimize the gap between the classes. We have all sen the signs saying we are part of the 99%, which forces us to realize that we are part of the ever growing lower class in this nation.
Also in the chapter international social work was discussed. It explained that social justice involves upholding the condition that in a perfect world all citizens would have identical “rights, protection, oppertunities, obligations, and social benefits,” regardless of their backgrounds and membership in diverse groups (Barker, 2003, pp. 404-405). This was seen in recent years in Haiti. Haiti is the poorest country in the Americas and in 2010 a 7.0 magnitude earthquake struck and devastated the country and killed an estimated 220,000 people. During this time social workers rallied and made a huge impact on helping the country and although some progress has been made, Haiti has yet to recover from this and much more work remains.
In the last year I have become interested in international social work as I have been reading on the Masai people in Kenya. The Masai have lived in their traditional ways with little or no government support. It is estimated that less than half of all Masai children attend schools, have clean drinking water or receive any type of medical care, so help is desperately needed in that culture.