Dispatches D4: Out of Poverty

For the fourth issue of dispatches, editors Mort Rosenblum and Gary Knight have returned to their reporting roots. Travelling through decaying corners of Ohio with notebook and camera, they meet the newly poor; the jobless and hopeless of formerly thriving Midwest towns where you can now buy a house for $800 and get a second thrown in for free. Crossing continents, in India, our editors focused on the two thirds of Indians who, despite the recent economic miracle, live on less than $1.40 a day. Where people are hungry they also get angry. We will fight, says one Indian farmer, all we need is a leader. Out of Poverty puts itself among the poor in America, in Africa, in India, in Europe. We look at how aid is spent, how an area of former conflict tries to rebuild and lift itself from poverty, and how inner city poverty is echoed through the generational changes within gang culture. To be impoverished is more than a lacking of assets; it spawns generational despair and endemic hopelessness.