Down - but certainly not out

How can one communicate what poverty is like? That may sound like a trite question for those who experience it first hand. Perhaps we could emulate George Orwell and take to the kitchens, streets and mines in Paris and London and Wigan and experience grinding poverty first hand. I imagine it would be quite a shock to anyone born after the creation of the welfare state, health service and safety at work regulations.

I raise this point as we are now almost half way through the “European year for combating poverty and social exclusion” and I chanced upon some video diaries made during a conference on “Poverty between reality and perceptions” in October last year in Brussels.

In it a series of policy makers and journalists talk about ways of raising the awareness of poverty in Europe and also how it manifests itself in other “stories”. I was quite struck by the comments of BBC Northern Ireland correspondent William Crawley who pointed out that often what can lies behind racism, violence, school drop outs, unemployment and family break-up is poverty. He urged people to look a bit closer at the origins of many of our problems and suggested that perhaps we may find poverty as a cause.

There are believed to be around 85 million people living in poverty in the European Union – a staggering amount given the resources Europe has on offer. This figure has grown due to the economic crisis. Add to this the millions “at risk of poverty” (those who earn less than 60% of the average of other people in society) and the fear of unemployment and it makes for a bleak state of affairs. In an article in February we tackled a few of the ways of defining what poverty really is.

I think this should also prompt us to delve a bit closer into the background of issues and stories that we publish on the site. Perhaps sometimes we are not doing something – or more importantly the people affected by it – justice.

Last week a group of people experiencing poverty met at the European Parliament for the 9th time. Many Euro MPs from across the House have taken up the fight against poverty and exclusion and are looking for ways to create jobs and increase incomes. A recent report in the Employment and Social Affairs Committee on the prospect of a minimum wage generated a lot of debate on how best to help people – more social protection (in a time of huge public debt) or more work schemes and incentives. Or a mixture of both in fact. Unsurprisingly, the preference in Parliament reflects  left-right political orientation.

In addition to these MEPs earlier this year backed a report that seeks to help the disabled by making disability a legal one and a question of human rights. This step, though it may sound legalistic, is intended to make it easier for Europe’s 50 million disabled to access health care, the job market and other essential services.

Let’s hope that the crisis steadily becomes alleviated and the initiatives taken lead to a steady improvement in the position of so many of our fellow citizens over the coming months and years.