reflections.................

"We create institutions and policies on the basis of the way we make assumptions about us and others. We accept the fact that we will always have poor people around us. So we have had poor people around us. If we had believed that poverty is unacceptable to us, and that it should not belong to a civilized society, we would have created appropriate institutions and policies to create a poverty-free world."

Muhammad Yunus.

Time and again I listen to clients say............"I just need a break. I don't want to be on welfare."

Stuck in the welfare system. The longer they're stuck, the harder it is to get a break. Once a person is in receipt of social assistance longer than 6 months, the chances of that breakout becomes more and more bleak. Policies and the lack of any integrated approach by government and community based services perpetuate the downward spiral. Our systems have produced a culture of poverty that has become acceptable................if not acceptable than ignored.

There are many wonderful people working in the frontlines who, more often than not are mired within their own siloed policy driven systems. Networking does occur, but real sharing and real commitment to helping a person out of the ghetto that can only happen if the commitment includes working from the same philosophy is sadly and blatantly missing.

I realize that the issue of poverty it isn't so clearcut. The clientele I work with are fighting a barrage of barriers, which range from illiteracy to dilaudid addiction. Mental illness, abuse, chronic health issues, poor coping skills, learning disabilities, family dysfunction feed the poverty cycle. Recent Canadian studies have shown that clearly over 70% of clients living on social assistance are clinically depressed. Disenfranchised and disconnected from their surrounding communities, individuals living in poverty remain stuck. This is no different than any other community.

I strongly believe that finding oneself on social assistance is a symptom of an individual's life situation. There is a cause and effect to the end result of finding yourself in crisis sitting in an office having some government worker assess your financial eligibility..........to see if you qualify for social assistance.

There has to be a way out. There has to be a more positively enabling approach to fighting this hideous demon. What is the role of government? What should it be? What are the roles of community based organizations? Of business? Of the Church? Of community members? Of the individual? What should they be?

How do we start finding our way to establish a successful gameplan?

Quite simply, we humanize it. We take poverty out of the abstract sphere that it encircles, and begin to see it as a person just like you and I.


If poverty has a face, it becomes real. If it is real, our compassion will embrace it. We can then make a connection.

Muhammad Yunus began his microcredit approach to helping the poor in Bangladesh by connecting with a small group of villagers who needed a meagre couple of dollars to move out of a life of poverty. They were the faces that opened his eyes. His experience since that first transaction has offered him proof that poverty is not an option. Next month, he will be awarded the Nobel Peace Prize along with the Grameen Bank.............the microcredit institution he founded. His theory and practical approach to eradicating poverty is working.

One individual at a time..................all they need is a helping compassionate hand, and a break. Living a life stuck in poverty is totally unacceptable.