Power from Poverty?

One of the pieces of work I’ve been working on this week is the Poverty Truth Commission. The PTC is an approach/ type of project which has been around in the UK for about 10 years or so. It’s a way of amplifying the voices of people who experience poverty and getting decision makers and people in power to listen to them as equals. It’s looking like DCA will be working on this project front and centre over the next few years and it’s likely it will come under my management.

This is the kind of project that both fires me up and makes me nervous. I love the idea of addressing power imbalances, getting “important” people (well, the ones who have control over money, resources and services anyhow) together with people who maybe haven’t felt heard or who haven’t felt their opinion was important. Anti-poverty work is really where my passion lies, it feeds my soul I guess. But this project is also scary; will we be able to get people involved who will make this work; what will we achieve; in the end will people feel it’s been worth doing? Most of all, will the people in power really be interested, listen to, work with people who in a different situation would be patients, services users and people with problems to address.

Hopefully the end game will be some changes to services, maybe some people who feel and act differently than before the PCT- perhaps because they are influencing change, or because they have learnt new skills and made new connections, or because they are doing things in a new way. Maybe some people will feel impassioned and empowered and it will be the start of something new in their lives. Who knows.

The challenge for me, (if I do end up managing staff who help deliver this project) is trusting the PTC process but also to encourage staff to be both kind and bold, so they engender confidence and create opportunities with the people in the PTC.

I’m looking forward to seeing how this journey unfolds.