In our country, poverty is a big factor in achieving true equity for all people.  What factor would you rate as the number one issue preventing the achievement of equity in your country?  Justify your answer.

What is your government (local, state or federal) doing about equity issues?

If you were in charge of the government in your country, what is the first thing you would do that would positively affect your future and advance equity? Why?

Answer from LC1 Wolfert Lyceum

In our country immigrants sometimes cause problems. They sometimes generate unrest or are destructive (especially the younger ones). But we let it not get out of control. We create special housing to give immigrants shelter and try to aid them in finding jobs or return tot their country if this is save enough. 

Money is not the biggest problem in the Netherlands, because with little money you can still be content and happy. If a person doesn’t have much needs he also doesn’t need a lot of money to be happy. We do have poor people here but they usually do have enough for food and housing. In the big cities there are homeless people, but this is usually because they are alcoholic or have mental problems.

Answer from LC3 Hajj Bahaa Eddine Hariri School

Unfortunately, poverty is a common factor of equality among people all over the world. We have a lot of social problems that need all our efforts to be solved. Some parents work two or three jobs to ensure their children's need. These social problems are caused by poverty. For example, people are treated in different ways because of the gap among the differnet social levels.

For example, poor people are treated rudely most of the times if they are applying for a certain job in a certain refined place such as hotels or companies. People are sometimes taken by their appearances. Exev if person is having money on him, but he doesn't wear expensive clothes, he might be misunderstood and underestimated. Appearances are being taken for being poor or wealthy. Such person may not be allowed to enter the above mentioned places before being questions. And sometimes such kind of people are not welcomed in the private hospitals unless the owners of this hospital got a call from "SOMEONE".

It is being rich that gives you the green card to enter great institutes, companies and even govermental institutions.

Answer from LC4 Kaohsiung Jhengsing Junior High School

We think gender equality is a big factor in achieving true equity for all people in our society. Traditionally, men and women don’t have the same rights. Women got less education and took on many responsibilities in the home for taking care of family members. Nowadays, female have equal opportunities to get education, but most people still believe that men have better ability than women, so they get higher salary and more job opportunities. We still have to overcome the traditional concept to make gender equality.  

Our government has tried hard on gender equality; they make laws on gender equality to protect women’s rights on work. The gender equality law makes sure that the women and men get the same salary. The government also made the law to prohibit sexual harassment happening at school or workplace. Besides laws, our government put gender equality issues in education. We read articles, watch movies, and have discussions on these issues. Teachers hope us to learn to respect each other.

If we work for the government, we will promote gender equality in every part of the country. Making laws and education are two main areas we will work on. Laws are the rules for the whole society and have strong power to change the society. We need to revise the unsuitable laws to protect human rights. Education is another powerful way to change the improper traditional concept. If we use lively ways to teach children, it is more possible to bring a new vision for the next generation.

Answer from LC5 Canisius

In our country difficulties in acceptation of a religion is one of the biggest factors. Next to that, accepting people from a different country. People here are prejudiced by immigrants and especcialy the younger immigrants cause much unrest they think. Money is not a really big problem in the Netherlands. The differences are not that big and there isn't much poverty. There are some people here that are poor but they ussaly get a benefit, and with that money they can buy the most important things to live

Our government has introduced a new law, that says that the wages level out, so that the high and low wages come more to the middle wage. Education is available for every child in the Netherlands.

If I was in charge of the government I would start with making some houses were poor people without a house could shelter. After that I will make a law so richer people would pay more taxes and the poor people less. I think it's very important that all people are equal, that we share everything equally.

Answer from LC6 Morning Star School Ltd:

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Answer from LC7 Herbert H. Carnegie Public School, Patrice and Natalie:

Answered by:  Poorva, Tarun, Shumael, Dayan and  Kian

     Within our group, we believe the number one factor preventing equity in Canada is age. In Canada, you must be 18 or over to vote. We believe this is inequitable and that the legal age should be 16. In our group, we think that if you’re old enough to start a family and to drive a car, why wouldn’t you be able to vote? We feel that 16 year olds are old enough to make a well informed decision. We also believe the way you’re treated because of your age is inequitable from a social point of view. If you are a kid or a teenager, you get treated differently from adults and other people. For example, if a 10 year old enters a high school, he/she would receive most likely negative looks from the high school students. Whereas when a 15 year old enters high school, it is completely normal. This is inequitable because we believe your age should NOT affect how you should be treated. 

     However, after taking a survey of the entire grade 8’s in our school, we found that the majority of eight graders believe that income is the number one factor preventing equity in Canada. Their reasons for this include tax brackets. Some people believe this is inequitable because it’s not fair that the more you make the more taxes you pay. Many people believe that everyone should pay equal taxes. Also, some people found that income is a large factor preventing equity from a social aspect as well. Sometimes, the amount of money you/your family has affects how people treat you. For example, if someone owns the latest brands and the coolest cars rather then someone who wears hand me down rags and an old car, the richer person will most likely be treated better from friends and society. They are viewed as upper class, which a lot of people find inequitable.

     Our government is currently not doing anything about the voting age in Canada. The previous age to vote was 21, but was lowered to 18 in the 1920s. But since then, the age has been staying at 18 without controversy because many politicians believe that the age of 16 is too young to vote. This could affect democracy in our country because teenagers might not vote even when they turn 18 because they never got the chance to start voting at a young age, this might cause them to lose interest in voting and democracy.

     If we were the government, the first thing we would do to benefit our futures and advance equity is lower the voting age to 16. We would do this because we believe it would be a fairer vote since more people have their voices heard. And we believe that 16 year olds are educated enough to make a well informed vote. We think this would benefit many futures of teenagers so they could have a say, and we believe it would advance equity. If you are old enough to drive and start a family, we believe that you should be old enough to vote.

Answer from LC8 Herbert H. Carnegie Public School, Rebecca and Laura:

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Answer from LC9 Nellie McClung P.S., Tracy and Nicole:

Our students were interested in learning more about how poverty is a factor in achieving equity in our Country.

Q: What are the main reasons that poverty is happening?

            Some people are getting paid minimum wage whichis not enough to pay off the house, the bills and taxes, groceries, and sometimes bank loans. Also, minimum wage is $10.25 per hour and when the taxes are $13 and you paid off some of the house you only have about $30 to $40 dollars and you use that to buy groceries and dinner so at the end of the day you only have about $10 left.

Q: If you were in charge of the Government in your country, what is the first thing you would do that would positively affect your future and advance equity? Why?

            If my group was in charge of the Government we would first start off by raising the minimum wage so that workers can get paid what they deserve because the minimum wage is too low and at the end of the day after getting paid about $80 you end up with about $10 after everything you pay off. Also we would lower the taxes so the workers could have a little money for themselves and not spending a lot of money on bills and taxes.

Q: What is the Government doing about equity issues?

            The government is paying families $1,100 in Ontario to help the family with the child to low-income families. Government helps pay less rent through Ontario housing.

The poster for our presentation: