Blog Action Day 2008: Poverty
October 15, 2008 – 2:29 pm by Jonathan Grand
Blog Action Day 2008! The theme is Poverty, which concerns us in many ways. Moozek was created to offer something for free to everyone who is already struggling to pay the mortgage/rent and still has to deal with some prohibitive prices in the audio and music market. But we are also aware that an overwhelming percentage of the world population doesn’t have access to basic resources like food and shelter, let alone education.
Moozek has been offering tips and advice to struggling musicians, and pretty much anyone who loves music and audio. On a first level, that is directly helpful for the readers, but on a second level it is also an attempt to create a culture based on sharing. Sharing knowledge and experience has been this blog’s primary goal, ever since it was started. And that needs to come from everyone, because it is fundamental to improve the self educational skills of a society. These skills correlate more directly to quality of life than most people would think.
I was born in Africa, in one of the poorest countries in the world (Mozambique), and I often think of all the people living there, who are not as fortunate as I was. In my opinion, I would agree that the schooling system in most countries is broken in a lot of ways, as it perpetuates the political, group psychology of survival for a greater good, instead of individual achievements. But reading a blog is not schooling - it is an act of individual pursuit of true education. With education, people have the tools to survive, to create, to imagine, to achieve immediate goals and long term dreams. Education means to look at ourselves and our role in this world, and to know that, as individuals, we are capable of changing, improving and creating.
That empowers people to see what they can do to improve their lives, the lives of their loved ones, and eventually change what is wrong. So the theme of poverty is really not just about not having money for food. It’s about something we all fear. It’s about all those people who suffer and die because of a broken world economy. We are all human beings with equal potential when we are born, and equal opportunities for everyone is a dream we are very far from reaching.
Moozek is a tiny piece in the whole massive machine of education. And the internet is a platform where that machine can be built. We are dreaming of better education for future societies, where people see what is wrong and stand up for what they know is right. Only such future would truly bring an end to poverty - an end to a system that feeds on ignorance and greed.