Poverty

I have been fortunate never to have faced poverty. I have only ever
experienced it second hand through working with families struggling to feed
their children and pay essential bills. I felt angry as they revealed the
reasons that led them to their situations. Why? Because in most cases there
could have been a positive outcome had an earlier interveAntion been made.
For the most part, they fell between the cracks and no one heard them
scream.
Poverty is real, here in Northern Ireland, in 2023, particularly amongst
children. Recent research suggests that a quarter of children are living in
poverty, in this place I call home. That's about 100,000 children.... or
twice the population of Lisburn.
But poverty is no respecter of background. If you are a person with a
disability, a carer, a senior citizen, a member of an ethnic minority,
unemployed or you simply just get sick, you have a far higher likelihood of
falling into poverty.
Today is Christian action on Poverty Sunday, where the main churches will
try to raise awareness of how living in poverty robs people of dignity,
voice and power. The theme interests me as we almost always equate poverty
with a lack of money, as income tends to be the blunt tool by which we draw
up the statistics. But as the World Bank has recently pointed out that
"Poverty is also about hunger, poverty is lack of shelter, poverty is being
sick and having no access to a doctor, poverty is not having access to an
education"
Ironically, people who live on life's margins rarely have a voice in how
society can create a better environment for those most in need. In trying to
extricate themselves from their situation, they almost always face issues
with systems and people in power - whether that is in politics, public life
or service deliverers - Why? Because they are people without agency.
The consequence is that they are left feeling they have no dignity, often
losing what self esteem they might have had, falling into self doubt,
feeling they cannot resolve their situation. It's known as the poverty
roundabout.
Even those of us who are more fortunate in life are never as far away from
poverty as we would like to think.
It is close to all of us. The Simon Community ran a highly successful
advertising campaign some years back with the strapline "You are only 3 pay
checks away from being homeless".
The alleviation of poverty isn't a cause for just one Sunday, but a
challenge for every day.
To quote one tv detective 'either everyone counts or no-one counts."