Students learn about global poverty during special assembly

Today, upper school students attended an assembly that featured an appearance by Tom Nazario, an assistant law professor at the University of San Francisco and founder of The Forgotten International, a nonprofit organization dedicated to alleviating poverty around the world. Nazario partnered with photojournalist Renee C. Byer to publish the 2014 book “Living on a Dollar a Day: The Lives and Faces of the World’s Poor.” The book chronicled the lives of extremely impoverished women and children in various parts of the world, including northern Ghana, Peru, India and Romania.

The publishing of the book led to the creation of a documentary of the same name, which students and faculty viewed at the assembly. Similar to the book, the film traveled to Ghana, Peru and India to examine the lives of people living in extreme poverty, with commentary provided by people the filmmakers encountered during their travels.

Following the viewing, Nazario answered questions from students. Nazario explained how interpreters were instrumental in overcoming language barriers and approaching people for interviews. Many of the people in the communities he visited, he added, were very close-knit and dependent on one another, a quality he noted is largely lacking in wealthier countries.

January 11, 2018Tags: guest speakers, Outreach