At free@last we do not believe that poverty is an acceptable position to be in, especially in this wealthy and flourishing world in which we live.
Our world has more than enough resources to share, which would quickly eradicate worldwide poverty, but human greed and selfishness stifles equality and results in children starving and dying before their time. Although we have experience of poverty around the world we are starting our journey to eradicate poverty, particular child poverty, in our own community. We have therefore developed a strategy, which we have begun to implement, and can be replicated in any community around the world.
We have worked hard to understand the cause of poverty in our own neighbourhood and we begin by recognising that poverty in urban priority areas are socially engineering by those who manage social housing and create a system that puts those in most need into the same neighbourhoods, without providing the necessary resources to enable their lives to flourish in all areas of life.
Addressing the root causes of poverty, let alone the resulting issues, requires a multi-agency approach, especially when systems that have been created for good have become the systemic cause of the problem. We need to enable local residents to work with all sectors and we created a tri-sector group to begin the process of identifying resources that were set aside for our community, and then either holding those accountable who were abusing those resources or redistributing what we have where it is most needed.
The devolution of power to manage and distribute allocated resources to a specified neighbourhood can only be truly effective if they are used and assigned by the people who honestly understand the complexities of that community. An effective partnership with all those who have a vested interest in a specific area will enable the core of a poverty strategy to be implemented successfully. This is the aim of WeCANB7, as we strive to change a community of poverty (53% child poverty) in to a community of prosperity and opportunity.
We also need to raise worldwide awareness that we can, regardless of the people in power ignoring the plight of our world’s poor, eradicate child poverty. We have therefore created the brand #forgivethose and hope to encourage a many people across the globe to join us in forgiving those who cause child poverty – and hopefully being forgiven will encourage them to change!
