Supporting community-led action during Challenge Poverty Week
/This article was featured in the SCDC Weekly - 9th October 2024.
It’s Challenge Poverty Week, and every year we join The Poverty Alliance and thousands of others to raise our collective voice against poverty and unite in calling for a more just and equal Scotland.
Community development has strong roots in anti-poverty action and campaigning, with equal access to wealth, opportunity, justice, and health and wellbeing central to its values. Society’s structures mean some groups face more oppression and exclusion than others, meaning a higher risk of facing discrimination, inequalities and poverty.
Addressing this imbalance is key, and community development approaches support people to take action on the issues important to them. This community-led action is a core part of tackling poverty, and on Friday this week, the campaign focuses on the role that communities and volunteers can play.
One way we’ve seen communities taking action has been through Health Issues in the Community (HIIC) students telling their stories about the corrosive effect poverty and inequality is having on their lives and the lives of their communities.
The human cost of poverty is clear to see, and it’s vital we listen to these voices and experiences. Through people taking part in the HIIC course, we’ve also seen how community-led action can lead to meaningful changes that improve lives and build stronger, more resilient communities who are able to challenge society’s injustices.
If as a country we’re going to achieve the First Minister’s stated aim to eradicate child poverty, or change the fact that more than a million people in Scotland live in relative poverty, we need to support communities to lead on this action - and use our country’s significant wealth to make urgently needed, transformative change happen.
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