Social workers channel Indiana Jones to deliver welfare checks to Brazil’s Amazon, By Stephen Kurczy, August 27, 2014, Christian Science Monitor: “The orange boat racing up the Amazon River tributary is loaded with the essentials for fighting poverty in the jungle: a chainsaw and a dozen social workers. The river has swollen some 60 feet with the rainy season, and the captain looks out for logs and branches that might rip into the hull. He’s also looking for signs of human life in this dense jungle, one of the poorest regions in Brazil’s vast territory. The boat turns down an inlet nearly invisible through the dense green overgrowth, and the team spots an elderly man casting a fishing net. It’s apparent he’s blind as he feels his way to shore, his right thumb missing from a past piranha attack. ‘How good is God?’ the man calls out, his skin rough and wrinkled like worn leather. ‘I’ve been praying for you to come, and suddenly you’re here,’ he tells the social workers. This expedition is part of Busca Ativa, or ‘active search,’ a federal program to extend social welfare entitlements to the hardest-to-reach areas of Brazil…”
Poverty-related issues in the news, from the Institute for Research on Poverty