The Poverty Truth Commission is a unique and powerful way of developing new insights and initiatives to tackle poverty, developed in Glasgow and Leeds over the past six years.
The key principle behind a Poverty Truth Commission is that decisions about poverty must involve people who directly face poverty.
Its uniqueness is derived from the fact that half of its members are people with senior roles in civic and business life in the city – and the other half are people with direct personal experience of what it is like to live in poverty in the city. The process is a culmination of relationship building, fact-finding and deep thinking over a 12 month period between people with a direct experience of poverty and civic and business leaders within the city. The aim is to ensure that people who have experienced poverty first-hand are at the heart of how the borough thinks and acts in tackling poverty and inequality.
“What if people living in poverty could take the lead on challenging the city’s leaders to work with them on tackling poverty? Would it make a difference to the decisions that are being made? Would new solutions to poverty be discovered? Would people listen and, if they did, would they better understand the challenges that poverty brings?”
Ordinary people will be given the chance to relate their personal experiences of struggling against poverty. By creating safe spaces for people to tell their stories and opportunities for those making and influencing decisions to listen, it is hoped that the project will have deepened understanding of the difficult and entrenched issues of poverty, improve perceptions and challenge stereotyping, and lead to better decision making by the city’s leaders across business, public and voluntary sectors.
Other Poverty Truth Commissions in the Country-
- Scotland Poverty Truth website
- West Cheshire Poverty Truth website
- Wolverhampton Poverty Truth website
- Birmingham Poverty Truth website
- Salford Poverty Truth Facebook Page
- Leeds Poverty Truth website