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assistance to official departments to help spread the advantage of their designed
programs. NGOs are often perceived as the modern cure of development, which can
remedy various ills of the society including inefficiency, instability, poverty,
disempowerment, and authoritarianism. The claims for these beneficial effects of the
NGOs have been supported by various success stories and anecdotal evidence.
Eventually, the role of the NGOs has become more diversified. Aside from supplying
various services and programs for development, some NGOs are presently involved in
helping out various communities regarding their problems and preferences, networking
skills to give and enhance the power of the poor, as well as coordinating with official
bodies to amplify the masses’ voice.
4. Poverty: People understand poverty in various ways. Some aspects of these definitions
are measurable, while some are not. Typically, people define and understand poverty as
the inability to provide for one’s needs. This condition or state is often termed as
“moneylessness” (Tussing, 1975). In a broader yet less concrete perspective, some
consider poverty as an aspect of social pathology, which includes not only the state of
moneylessness but also the conditions of helplessness, lack of political influence,
dependency and other similar situations. In this case, poverty is also a state of
powerlessness.
In the sense of "moneylessness," the definition of poverty is as a problem of not having
enough basic medium of exchange in order to satisfy the basic human needs as well as to
function socially and economically. Within any society or part of the world, basic human
needs always exist. Although the standards of living tend to vary from place to place,
elementary human needs are the same.
These include nutritious food, shelter, clothing, and sanitation, medical attention, and for
some affluent societies, recreation and entertainment. People who are suffering from
poverty lack the financial resources, or money to acquire these basic needs. Rowntree
(2000) supported this definition when he stated that poverty is the point where the total
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