How has reading this book or discussing in class caused you to think about some of these social issues in a different way?

Ever since I was a young kid, my mom would often tell stories of her rough childhood in poverty. (It wasn’t as bad as Boonma’s state though, I think.) Despite that, before reading the book “No Way Out”, I’ve always felt that poverty was a distant problem from my life and hadn’t thought much about it. The book described in gruesome detail about the characteristics of poverty, and what people really go through. It helped improve my understanding of the circumstances of those people, and made me feel compelled to help these people somehow. I wanted to walk right into a slum and just hand people money from my wallet, because I don’t need the money as much as they do. As of this moment, I want to help those people when I grow up.

Another thing is that I thought that poverty is something that happens to people who don’t try to change their lives. My mom got out of poverty and has much more money now than she did in her past because of her hard work, while some of her siblings struggle with money because they hadn’t worked as hard as she did in their younger years. Because of the stories that my mom tells me, I saw people in poverty as people who don’t try. That worldview has changed over the years, and before I read the book I already was thinking about how people in poverty didn’t have much of a choice, and the book really established that thinking for me.

Another worldview that changed for me is my view on prostitution. In the beginning I felt that it was a very dishonourable profession, and I never wanted to involve myself with those who are in it. Throughout the years I also knew more about it, partly thanks to ICS talking to us about it in chapels and homerooms. When I read to the part where it turns out that Sida and her mom is in prostitution, I felt sympathy for them instead of distaste. They had to choose to either become prostitutes or continue suffering with money, and it is understandable that they chose the former.