For six years living in Seychelles now, I have seen how a poverty-stricken like my country has a vast difference when it comes to "poverty" by literal meaning here on the island. One time my sister-in-law and I talked about financial stuff, investments, savings, insurance until we reached the topic of "poverty."
By definition from Investopedia, it is a state or condition in which a person or community lacks the financial resources and essentials for a minimum standard of living. Poverty means that the income level from employment is so low that basic human needs can't be met. Seychelloise may experience it but never the kind of poverty that I have seen in my country. This short clip I took at Perseverance where the locals are given housing assistance, as per timestamp 00:36.
What do I mean by this?
People are given housing aide. They have free medical healthcare needless to say they have a pension and social security assistance at the end of the month.
new condominium was built for the new professionals or returning graduates who were sent abroad for their studies funded by the government and once they finished their course, they're privileged to own one of the units as per salary deduction. Sort of like a "GIFT" given by the Ministry of Housing. My husband declined the offered he got when he returned from the UK as he wanted to build the house nearby his mom's place!
If you're an ex-pat who just came here for a holiday and by accident you would see one or two people sleeping at the bus stop, you can be assured that these individuals are drunkards and they failed to reach their abode. They have their PLACE to stay, they have a roof where they could sleep comfortably.
Perhaps the place where they spent drinking with their friends was a bit far from their house thus decided to sleep at the bus stop, or at times on the side of the road but what would you expect if they're too drunk? This you would see if you would take a bus in an early morning going off for work. While in the Philippines, when you say poverty, families lived in a very unfortunate condition, worst under the bridge. Writing this makes my heart breaks!
There's nothing to be surprised with this scenario, although at first, I pity those people yet when my husband told me the reason behind, I couldn't help still but feel the same as how they're being taken cared too much by their government to the point of tolerating their laziness. They were taught to be more DEPENDENT in exchange for something political (and I don't want to touch more on this subject).
But the question was that, where do they get the money to buy liquor?
Three main sources would be.
1. money they received from their pension at the end of the month.
2. from friends buying them an alcoholic drink.
3. begging mostly from ex-pats and not from their people ( because Seychelloise's who are educated and who knew they will just buy the money for liquor would never fall for their begging scheme)
I am still an ex-pat given my 6 years of stay in the country and technically my contract though indefinite still fall for the ex-pats and local ones. Confusing right? So I had an experience how it was being asked for a certain amount.
That moment in Dockland!
One time I went to Dockland, a shopping centre nearby the pier where they usually had the cruise liner ADA docked, hence ex-pats were everywhere to be found.
While waiting for my husband to pick me up since at that time I did not know where to take the bus going home as I just arrived in the country for a month. A fine young lad about age 18, who was physically able and can work ( at least to earn a living for himself) asked me for a SPECIFIC amount of money.
He said, "Ms, excuse you're an ex-pat?"
and I replied "yes!"
So he started telling me stories about his life, how hard he had been working to earn a living. I almost fell for his story line and in the end, he asked for 25scr. A tiny 25scr won't hurt my pocket right?
But mind you the way he asked for it was like I owe him that amount when he specifically uttered 25 SCR. Well, we talked further and timely my husband came, talked to him in Creole and he left. I asked why did he leave just like that as I was about to give him 25 SCR. I insisted to give him the money at least for his story. Fair enough right?
Teach Generosity but never Dependency
My husband told me that I should not be too generous of those people who would just come and asked even if it's a tiny 25, 10, 5 SCR knowing that this bad habit of the people is becoming a dilemma due to laziness of not even bothering to find a job wherein tons of availability yet locals don't bother to work at all. Being too dependent on their government somehow had a wrong conception regarding independence when it comes to earning a good living for a decent life.
As I have shared how the locals here got mostly FREEBIES, on the hind side, it has a negative effect because you would see mostly ex-pats are working in the country and their labour force for the young generation of locals has a tiny percentage of manpower. Given the fact in the school where I am working, mostly in the Secondary and Tertiary posts are dominated by ex-pats, the locals themselves are dominant in the primary and creche.
This is quite alarming although programs for young Seychelloises are now encourage to take serious work habit even the fact of being sent overseas for further studies
funded by their government, yet some were still not much into it. I remembered my s5 student with whom I told how lucky she could become taken into account that she has government funded scholarship yet replied to me she doesn't need it.
Please note that this Seychelles Trading Company card has points accumulation upon purchase of items in the shopping centre. A good initiative for rebates.
It's all About Mentality and not Poverty (don't give me a lame excuse)
Poverty is a mindset and not just a state of life. The moment you inculcated the fact that you are poor by then you will die poor and this acknowledgment will devour your system, regardless of how hard you work and earn money for a decent living, you are still going into a rat race.
This can be refuted by those people who are truly experiencing economic hardship especially if they had a good opportunity during their working years however there are people regardless of what odd job they had, used their current situation to earn million and get out from a poverty-stricken situation. Gina through her story of becoming a millionaire by investing in the stock market is an inspiring story worth sharing especially for Filipinos working overseas that it's not just about earning huge amount of money but it's really about discipline and investing regularly.
She worked as a maid yet it didn't stop her to get out of that circumstances. She's the epitome of what financial success can give real freedom to someone should you know the proper channel.
Her boss, a lay preacher and a poor missionary before his decision to become rich, an author of the book entitled, "How To Prosper" helped her achieved what her dream not only for herself but also for her family in the province.
Adoption of Cryptocurrency is the Bloodline to Financial Success (but not for all!)
Two scenarios that would give an ideal adoption into cryptocurrency can either bring success or financial failure to investors or traders especially those who were driven by greed and addiction. The story of Jake from Scotland who had been addicted to crypto lost millions of pounds and is taking ongoing treatment due to an unfortunate event.
On the other side, Turley, a university student back in 2017 , now lives in Los Angeles and works in crypto strategy at Ethereum-based streaming app Audius, said,
"I’m entirely self-taught" likewise when his parents through his success, felt compelled to buy cryptocurrency too! he felt more confident on what he was doing investing into cryptocurrency. He managed to control his emotion of not plunging into the unknown of investing, needless to say, he did his faithful DYOR hence no FUD despite the 2017 market crashed.
What's the Rationale?
Given the above-mentioned scenarios and many other life adversities when it comes to finances, our mentality towards poverty brings a greater impact on how we create money-making machines.
There is a twist of events that dictate us it's too difficult to get out from poverty however based on my experiences considering that I achieved 3/4 of what I defined success before ( e.g. bought a house and property back in my country, a minicab for a proposed business venture with my parents, likewise managed to invest the rest into a long term vehicle, annual travel outside the country, living a comfortable life with my hubby and my baby, helped in any way I can in the Bukas Palad Foundation in Davao City, even thinking of adopting a child before I learned about my pregnancy) what else could I ask for?
My conviction tells me, the only hindrance to poverty is our mentality. So SHIFT your gear as you overhaul your life towards financial abundance and stability!
Remember what Elon Musk said,
"My mentality is that of a samurai. I would rather commit seppuku than fail."
Click on the Images for its sources
Gina and Bro. Bo's image was taken on her account via IG edited via Canva
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Wow. Poverty is a mindset. I love that! I admiire that house maid who invested! Financial literacy should be learned by every people, especially Filipinos.