Apologies for abandoning this site for quite a while. Let's talk about 'poverty in Brunei'. More than 4,000 Bruneians received their tithe from the government recently, that's a positive sign showing 4,000 of who was once poor, is no longer poor. But how about those who aren't Bruneians, living in the rural areas where they could not register themselves for welfare due to transportation problems, and the unlucky ones who are actually in need of attention but did not receive any? Can we still say that our country is free from poverty? From my point of view, no matter how hard we try to alleviate poverty completely, there will always be the unlucky few who are still trapped in the poverty life cycle.

I've embarked myself with six other undergrads into understanding the true meaning of poverty in Brunei. For this semester, we will be conducting primary data gathering by means of interviewing the relevant families. Our project has the support from one of the local banks in Brunei and we are grateful for that. Finding an organization that is willing to support us financially was never an easy task, and I'm thankful that I belong to a dedicated team working hard to make this project as smooth as it could possibly go, insyaAllah.

You might be wondering why am I suddenly embarking myself into the area of poverty. Well, i've seen TV shows portraying poor families and how they had to struggle to make ends meet, but what gave a direct impact to me was how I have witnessed all these things first hand. It really breaks one heart when you see an individual rely on a piece of bread for the whole day, when I on the other hand have a full course meal three times a day. A dollar to them is worth a few days to keep them from starvation.

So, I've once came across that the losses our government makes amounted to millions of dollars from the unpaid electricity bills. Yes, there are a portion of those irresponsible ones who delay their bill payments, but actually another portion of them are those from the poor who has to struggle day after day just to have food served for their children. A tough decision to be made, to cut the power or let the bills mountain up itself which will be another burden for them? Saying is not as easy as doing it. Try going to their houses and see for yourself how bad their situation is, then see if we have the strength to demand them to pay their outstanding bills. Cause i'm honestly too weak to do that.