Ending Poverty in Manitoba
Over the last few days I have been using my Instagram and Twitter accounts to ask folks to help me answer a simple question:
What is the first thing we need to to to END poverty?
How would you answer the question? What would your approach be? It is important for me to get a good understanding of current answers to this question as I recently began working with a provincial task force on Education and Poverty and want to make sure the voices of our community members that are most affected by poverty are able to have their voices and ideas heard. With that being said, me asking folks on social media what their ideas is hardly a scientific survey but definitely revealed some trends that came out and a couple gems I would like to share.
What is the first thing we need to to to END poverty?
— Michael Redhead Champagne (@northendmc) January 26, 2022
2 Ideas from Michael
For myself I am a back to basics person when it comes to poverty. I have a 2 point strategy for finding the right way to success. First, we have folks with lived experience at the decision making table to help guide any decisions about poverty and; second, do everything we can to make sure that every person in our community has their basic needs provided for. To me if we can do these two things we can solve poverty! I know this is a difficult conversation and there are my other groups at many levels trying to address this, I am grateful they are doing this work too. I hope in future all the different helpers can coordinate our approaches so that we can go farther, faster.
Repeaters & Patterns
It is really helpful for me when I ask these questions on social media as many folks introduce topics I never thought of or repeat things so frequently I am sometimes surprised at how clearly the community is speaking. I have highlighted the top 5 messages that seemed to repeat themselves from the responses, and I even included in brackets the number of replies that I grouped together to come up with that item. Take a look at a possible recipe for ending poverty:
Give people Money (14) - “guaranteed basic income” and “tax the rich” were the biggest repeaters across my social media feeds. I tend to agree with this and also want folks to check out if they can Radical Trust by Evelyn Forget and Hannah Owczar where this is explored in depth! Myself and Fearless R2W were honoured to contribute to a chapter in the book as well.
Compassion (5) - we need people to take compassionate approaches to poverty instead of the dollars and cents approach that leave too many kids and families being homeless and without their basic needs met. Many of these folks are dealing with complex or inter generational traumas without adequate care at the same time and so the rest of the community must be compassionate, constructive and understanding.
Acknowledge It (4) - we as a society must acknowledge the real and far reaching (and expensive) impacts poverty has across many systems including justice, health, child welfare and more. Many people, especially politicians and those in decision maker roles would do better to acknowledge it and listen more to the voices of those with lived experience on how to craft efficient solutions.
Decolonize (4) - These were huge but important recommendations: end white supremacy, dismantle capitalism, end patriarchy, support mothers in all forms without hesitation. Each of these could be their own blog post in future!
Housing (3) - affordable housing and lowering rents were mentioned as possible first steps we could take. I am not surprised to see this come up as the work I’ve done previously with Indigenous youth aging out of care identified housing as a major challenge with the most recent snapshot of homelessness saying approximately 70% of people struggling with homelessness in Winnipeg had some contact with child and family services
Note: Education and political will were mentioned twice each as well. There was also one answer that emphasized the importance of supporting mothers in all forms without hesitation.
Language Note: I want to call attention to the fact that I am asking the question of how we can END poverty. Not how can we reduce it, or how can we make it slightly less. I want to end, eliminate and eradicate poverty. We should say it, work towards it, measure the goals and celebrate successes as we lift more and more of our relatives into healthy and safe lives.
Shout Outs
Here are 3 answers that didn’t have any repeaters but I thought they would be worth mentioning
“Food Diversity” - while I am not entirely sure what was meant here I know that there is a huge need to address food insecurity and ensure that people in isolated, northern and remote communities have access to healthy, nutritious and affordable food.
“New Leaders” - this one definitely speaks to the frustration many people have with our current elected systems. I know when people are disillusioned with systems they disengage but I ask those of you who are frustrated to let the decision makers know how you feel while at the same time working with like minded people to build up a solution that makes sense to you.
“A convoy of truckers who are willing to help” - the reason I like thi one is because it looks at the amount of attention, resources nd energy being expended in front of our eyes right now and asks us, what if that energy was re-directed to ending poverty? something to think about.
Thank you to everyone who participates in my little social media questions, I am grateful for your contributions, I hope I was able to do your suggestions proud with this post. As my work continues with the Manitoba Education and Poverty Task Force, I will keep community members posted about how they can have their say in guiding the work that happens at that table.
