Escaping the poverty

escaping the poverty

This is a video found on TED.com telling a story of a young poor girl named Jane growing up in a slum of Africa and how she eventually gets herself out of poverty. Since her childhood she had two dreams: becoming a doctor and marrying a good husband. Due to poverty she didn't manage to realize her first dream and married with a guy, got pregnant and gave birth to two sons. However, her husband left her and she was left with no jobs, no skills, no income and no life. She struggles through the social classes and market and eventually escaping poverty and end up having her own house. I find this video interesting because it relates to the few economic concepts that I had learnt in economics class: we all have comparative advantage in one or another field, specialization/ trade is the road to wealth while self-sufficient is the road to poverty, and how to place valueless items to where it's highly value.


1. In Jane's story that we can see that instead of becoming a doctor, she becomes a seller and a counselor which she fits perfectly into the role. She has the comparative advantage of encourage people with HIV positive because she is a living example of how people can still live with dignity as HIV positive. The society ends up getting better because it losses a not so good doctor to a great counselor. She does not need to sacrifice much to become a counselor and encouragement. Problem is, how do I know what's my very own comparative advantage?

2. Jane's specialized in sewing and she trades her skills to the market. She is efficient because she produces stuff with the lowest cost, maximum production that people want. She became richer by that. We can see that she has more resources by buying a sewing machine with the money that she earned, which makes her even more productive. Should there be anymore excuses on "I am skill-less"?

3. She places herself at a higher value because she understands her comparative advantages. Even without skills she can still become rich by many definition. Economic crisis is the time when innovation and creativity sprung in. As we being incentivized (without the intention of harming each others), we will be led to jobs. So why should we be worried much about unemployment?

I really like this video because it really gives us lots of things to learn from the story of Jane. We shouldn't be worried about whether in the future we are going to be employed or not. There is always a way to find wealth as long as trade involves.