I am addressing the issue of personal responsibility in Haiti.  I think that the people in Haiti are very deserving of our aid and are in desperate need for food and other necessary supplies to provide them with adequate clothing and shelter.  Just as the second article comments, the poor people at Haiti are not at fault for being born into an impoverished country.  The only acceptable way to evaluate their personal responsibility is to judge the actions they have taken concerning their situation.  I believe that no one should have to choose which child should survive when dealing out food; however, the parents do have control over the size of their families.  I am not saying that people who are poor automatically should not have large families.  I only think that perhaps they should take into consideration the repercussions of economic hardships on their children’s lives BEFORE starting their families. 

            I agree that the government should get involved in eliminating poverty to a certain degree, but I cannot honestly support a government system limiting the number of children a family has (as they do in China to try and eliminate a great deal of poverty and prevent over-population).  I think that the individual families must make their own decisions regarding family size, and that it is their personal responsibility-not the governments-to insure they can provide for the children they choose to have or not have.  However, I also admit that many of the families may have no accurate way of judging how many people they can reasonably support and that there are so many families who are already large, that an outside group or government or SOMEONE must step in to solve the already existing poverty. 

            I like the idea of teaching the native people to make the Medika Mamba in order to supplement a great deal of the nutrients needed. Although this does not solve the problem of poverty, it certainly is a start to a temporary fix in certain parts of Haiti by providing the community with jobs and food.  Perhaps we need to have individuals and private agencies in the United States willing to step up and help these struggling people either by  providing them with a small degree of education, decent-paying jobs, or enough food/money/other handouts to get the family back on their feet.  As a way of giving back to the community for the blessings given to us as Americans, we need to help these other struggling people.  This should be something we do out of goodness and willingness to help others, not to be dictated by the government.  Honestly, if the government donates our money through taxes, we see little of its development and have no personal connection or knowledge to where the funds go---they could be used to purchase “300$ hammers” or other ridiculous projects.  By donating money as individuals, we are upholding our personal responsibility to the rest of humanity.  How sad is it that we have to have the government to take away our money and give it to the impoverished? How selfish are we as a nation that we cannot donate a few dollars through our own will? Donating privately also allows us to choose which charity/country/area/group of people/type of project we put our money towards.  Once we see the results of our own endeavors, won’t we be more willing to support new projects in the future?

            And as a response to the poverty project/ where the money is going; perhaps we should give the money instead to a program that purchases livestock for families in impoverished countries? For example, they purchase cows, goats, chickens etc so that the family can sell milk/cheese/eggs for profit and keep some of it for consumption? I will look more into the project and get a name and idea of how much money it costs. It may be a more direct way of getting involved, though