After posting my invitation to all the followers of our blog about this topic, no one replied.
Hmph! What does it mean? I can only speculate but it would not sound fair. I really intended it to be in this style because I want it to be supported by personal thoughts, feelings, or even experience of people to make it more meaningful and essential. Nonetheless, I tried my best to ask few friends regarding this topic. I was able to get some interesting replies from them. But first, allow me to share to you what deprivation is, based from some references.
There is no single generally agreed definition of deprivation. Deprivation is a concept that overlaps, but is not synonymous with poverty. Absolute poverty can be defined as the absence of the minimum resources for physical survival, whereas relative poverty relates this to the standards of living of a particular society at a specific time. The different concepts of deprivation include the following:
Material deprivation, which reflects the access people have to material goods and resources. Access to these goods and resources enables people "to play the roles, participate in relationships and follow the customary behaviour which is expected of them by virtue of their membership in society."
Social deprivation has been separately distinguished as relating to people’s roles and relationships, membership and social contacts in society.
Multiple deprivation relates to the occurrence of several forms of deprivation concurrently, such as low income, poor housing, and unemployment. This can be particularly stressful for families.
Given these definitions, many of the responses I got from my friends are more of material deprivation due to their socio-economic status in life. When they were young, they were longing to have brand new toys, clothes, and all other materials things that a child would want to have. However, because their parents could not afford to buy the things that they wanted and sometimes needed as a child, they ended up feeling sad, frustrated, upset, angry, and dissatisfied.
In effect, one of them has the compulsion of buying and collecting all the latest Nike shoes eventhough he doesn't need them. Another one doesn't feel comfortable if he is not able to swipe his credit card in a week and buy any latest and branded item available in the market. On the other hand, some of them learned the value of saving for the "rainy days" because they do not want to experience anymore poverty. While the rest can fully relate to and have become sensitive enough to the needs of others. Thus, they would usually help and share whatever they can to the needy.
I will never forget the time I saw my Inang (mother) crying because I stole her hard earned money from selling balut (egg). At the age of 12, there was this very popular plastic toy called flying T. It was made of plastic and you have to spin it up so it will fly high like a helicopter. I wanted to have a lot of it that's why I was motivated to steal the money of Inang. When I saw her crying, it broke my heart and I immediately returned the money by placing it in the area where Inang would usually put it. I felt very guilty at that time and as a consequence of my malevolent action, my siblings would always accuse me of stealing everytime an item was missing at home eventhough I did not get it. It was a traumatic and torturing experience for me.
I believe that deprivation can be a fate or a choice for many people. One thing I have realized is that it has a tremendous impact to a person's growth and development whether psychological, emotional, intellectual, social, spiritual, and even sexual in nature.
For whatever may be the effect of this to you or to people around you, I hope that we can try our best to be an instrument and source of inspiration in our small way to people we meet everyday, so that we may all continue to live life to the fullest despite of our individual deprivation.
Hmph! What does it mean? I can only speculate but it would not sound fair. I really intended it to be in this style because I want it to be supported by personal thoughts, feelings, or even experience of people to make it more meaningful and essential. Nonetheless, I tried my best to ask few friends regarding this topic. I was able to get some interesting replies from them. But first, allow me to share to you what deprivation is, based from some references.
There is no single generally agreed definition of deprivation. Deprivation is a concept that overlaps, but is not synonymous with poverty. Absolute poverty can be defined as the absence of the minimum resources for physical survival, whereas relative poverty relates this to the standards of living of a particular society at a specific time. The different concepts of deprivation include the following:
Material deprivation, which reflects the access people have to material goods and resources. Access to these goods and resources enables people "to play the roles, participate in relationships and follow the customary behaviour which is expected of them by virtue of their membership in society."
Social deprivation has been separately distinguished as relating to people’s roles and relationships, membership and social contacts in society.
Multiple deprivation relates to the occurrence of several forms of deprivation concurrently, such as low income, poor housing, and unemployment. This can be particularly stressful for families.
Given these definitions, many of the responses I got from my friends are more of material deprivation due to their socio-economic status in life. When they were young, they were longing to have brand new toys, clothes, and all other materials things that a child would want to have. However, because their parents could not afford to buy the things that they wanted and sometimes needed as a child, they ended up feeling sad, frustrated, upset, angry, and dissatisfied.
In effect, one of them has the compulsion of buying and collecting all the latest Nike shoes eventhough he doesn't need them. Another one doesn't feel comfortable if he is not able to swipe his credit card in a week and buy any latest and branded item available in the market. On the other hand, some of them learned the value of saving for the "rainy days" because they do not want to experience anymore poverty. While the rest can fully relate to and have become sensitive enough to the needs of others. Thus, they would usually help and share whatever they can to the needy.
I will never forget the time I saw my Inang (mother) crying because I stole her hard earned money from selling balut (egg). At the age of 12, there was this very popular plastic toy called flying T. It was made of plastic and you have to spin it up so it will fly high like a helicopter. I wanted to have a lot of it that's why I was motivated to steal the money of Inang. When I saw her crying, it broke my heart and I immediately returned the money by placing it in the area where Inang would usually put it. I felt very guilty at that time and as a consequence of my malevolent action, my siblings would always accuse me of stealing everytime an item was missing at home eventhough I did not get it. It was a traumatic and torturing experience for me.
I believe that deprivation can be a fate or a choice for many people. One thing I have realized is that it has a tremendous impact to a person's growth and development whether psychological, emotional, intellectual, social, spiritual, and even sexual in nature.
For whatever may be the effect of this to you or to people around you, I hope that we can try our best to be an instrument and source of inspiration in our small way to people we meet everyday, so that we may all continue to live life to the fullest despite of our individual deprivation.
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