Blog

30/08/2019

Challenge Poverty Week 2019

Challenge poverty week runs from 7th - 13th October this year and the planning for this year's event is well underway as Irene from Poverty Alliance tells us in this weeks blog.

Challenge Poverty Week is an opportunity to highlight what is being done to address poverty, showcase the solutions we can all get behind to solve it and commit to more action in the future. It has been coordinated by the Poverty Alliance for the last seven years, and it takes place from the 7th to the 13th October 2019.

Last year nearly 200 events were organised by 130 organisations and elected representatives as part of Challenge Poverty Week. The campaign also received cross-party support, with leaders of all major political parties in Scotland taking part.

The key messages for this year’s Challenge Poverty Week are:

Challenge Poverty in Scotland? Aye, we can!

• Too many people in Scotland are trapped in the grip of poverty
• By boosting incomes and reducing costs we can solve poverty
• Solving poverty is about ensuring we can all participate in society
Why not take part?
You can get involved in Challenge Poverty Week by organising an activity or creating communications content. You can, for example:
• Organise a themed discussion
• Have an open day at your organisation
• Write a blog, make a video or talk to the media about the solutions to poverty
• Speak to a local politician about what needs to be done

To get more ideas on how to take part, ask us for a copy of our activity toolkit. Email Irene at irene.tortajada@povertyalliance.org

We are hoping to get substantial media coverage of the participant’s actions on a local and national level, with a focus on ensuring most of them use the framed messages and content we are disseminating for the Week. These messages are based on research by the Joseph Rowntree Foundation on public attitudes towards poverty and the most effective ways to build support to solve it by using framed language. We are offering free training to all participants in the Week about the learnings from this research on framing, with a focus on how to use language effectively when engaging with the media. You can learn more and sign up on our website: www.challengepoverty.net

The solutions we are advocating

We believe we can end poverty by boosting people’s incomes and reducing the cost of living. Employers can play their part by ensuring every worker is paid the real Living Wage. Governments at all levels must ensure that social security benefits are adequate to help loosen the grip of poverty and provide an anchor against the rising tide of low pay and high housing costs. Governments should invest in affordable and accessible services including transport, heating and childcare. Community groups and voluntary organisations have a vital role to play providing support, giving advice and mitigating the impact of poverty.

Objectives for this year’s edition

The majority of participants in 2018 were third sector organisations, followed by elected representatives, and a smaller number of very active faith-based organisations and local authorities. The rest were public sector organisations and trade unions.

This year we hope to keep counting on strong support from the voluntary sector, alongside more active local authorities. We are also targeting more faith-based organisations and charities whose work is not directly anti-poverty, which we hope will help our message reach further.

How can we help you?

The Poverty Alliance will give all the support we can to help you participate in the Week. This support will include:

• Provide an activity toolkit to help you get involved. Ask Campaigns Officer Irene for a copy: irene.tortajada@povertyalliance.org
• Provide free training on media and how to build support for the solutions to poverty
• Promote your activity through local media, social media and our event calendar
• Give individualised advice. (Email Irene at irene.tortajada@povertyalliance.org)
• Provide social media graphics, media templates, lesson plans and petition letters
Together we can challenge poverty
Challenge Poverty Week is a real, practical opportunity to build a stronger movement against poverty and demonstrate our values of justice and compassion. At a time when life is becoming tougher for many people, it is vital that we build support for solving poverty.

To find out more and get involved:
Website: www.challengepoverty.net
Twitter: @CPW_Scotland on Twitter
Email: irene.tortajada@povertyalliance.org
Phone number: 07561881374

23/08/2019

Tailor-made Manifesto For the 21st Century - Laudato Si

Lord John McFall, Deputy Speaker of the House of Lords writes this week's Justice and Peace Scotland blog reflecting on the importance of Pope Francis' encyclical Laudato Si as the way ahead in addressing the great global challenges of our time.

Fifty years ago the Apollo 8 astronauts were overcome by their view of the earth’s ‘singular beauty, isolation and fragility’. Today that sense of fragility has taken on a new meaning as we hold the future of the planet in our hands.

Conservative projections indicate that the world is on course to become at least 3 degrees hotter by the end of this century than in pre-industrial times. We have not seen a 3 degrees rise for around 3 million years and 4 or 5 degrees for tens of millions of years. Such a temperature rise would transform the relationship between human beings and the planet. Most of Southern Europe would look like the Sahara desert, with Bangladesh and Florida largely submerged. Hundreds of millions of people could be on the move, with severe conflict a certain outcome. The World Bank estimates there could be upwards of 140 million refugees by 2050 – more than 100 times Europe’s Syrian crisis.

The Australian National Centre for Climate Restoration says that human civilisation as we know it may have already entered its last decades. We are burning 80% more coal than we did at the turn of the millennium - proof that globally we are not doing enough.

So what more can governments, politicians and society do?

In a recent House of Lords lecture, the Astronomer General, Lord Rees of Ludlow, emphasised that no political decision is ever purely scientific. It involves economics, ethics and politics. So politicians need to work with as many groups as possible in the global race to save the planet. This is where the Church and, in particular, Laudato Si’, enter centre stage.

As a ‘practicing but unbelieving Anglican’, Lord Rees was encouraged by Pope Francis to contribute to the encyclical. He praised the pope for his global leadership and said: ‘There is no gainsaying the Church’s global reach, its long-term vision and concern for the world’s poor.’

Jeffrey Sachs, described by Time magazine as ‘the world’s best known economist’, is an unabashed Pope Francis fan. He says that Francis offers the most compelling leadership on the planet, warning about economic and environmental degradation and projecting a compelling vision in a world threatened with extinction. He argues that Catholic Social Teaching, from the Gospels to Laudato Si’, puts the question of economics into a moral framework.

Laudato Si’ is a radical call to conversion. It advocates ‘ecological conversion’ in which our encounter with Jesus is realised as a ‘vocation to be protectors of God’s handiwork’. In a recent interview, Pope Francis said that it is not a green encyclical but a social encyclical based on a ‘green’ reality, the custody of creation.

Over the years, I have seen the good work done by Justice and Peace groups in schools and communities throughout the country. Laudato Si’ strikes me as being a tailor-made manifesto for Justice and Peace groups in the 21st century. With possible catastrophe facing humanity in the coming decades, there is no more relevant social teaching than Laudato Sí, which addresses not just a single issue, but the great global challenges of our time.

Lord John McFall

On Saturday 21st September 2019 Justice and Peace Scotland are holding a conference on the environment in Glasgow - Laudato Si - Care For Our Common Home, to find out more and to book a place at the conference click here https://www.eventbrite.co.uk/e/laudato-si-care-for-our-common-home-tickets-59884089925

16/08/2019

Development Education For All Ages

Julius Nyerere once said: "Take every penny you have set aside for aid for Tanzania and spend it in the UK, explaining to people the facts and causes of poverty.” In this week’s blog, Mark Booker, development officer for SCIAF, echoes the importance of the Tanzanian peace activist’s words.

Development education is vital in raising awareness and increasing understanding of how global issues affect our everyday lives. We make no apologies at SCIAF for the time, effort and resources that go into educating not only our young people in schools but the wider Catholic community too.

I think it is imperative that as individuals, and as a community, we are informed about global issues such as poverty, injustice, gender equality, climate change, human rights and more. We can’t afford to continue living in a world where people are ignorant and narrow-minded. It’s important to understand that Development Education is not about telling people the right answer. Rather it is about promoting and facilitating critical thinking about some of these vital issues. It should challenge global perceptions and lead us to take action for a fairer world.

I count it a privilege and also a huge responsibility, in my role as a Development Education Officer at SCIAF, to be part of delivering a significant part of the Bishops’ mandate - that of educating the Catholic Community in areas of global justice and international development.

The beauty of development education and its promotion of justice is that it complements Catholic Social Teaching so well. I believe that development education can help us achieve, in part, what the “Lord requires” when in Micah 6:8 it says “To act justly and to love mercy and to walk humbly with your God”. I feel that a personal faith in God only enhances the actions we may take when we’re made more globally aware through development education.

SCIAF’s support in this area takes different forms, from school workshops and lessons (sometimes led by our amazing volunteers) to the provision of resources that are linked to the Curriculum for Excellence and the Catholic RE curriculum, ‘This is our Faith’.

In many ways, young people and schools are far more knowledgeable than the rest of society about the world we live in and that’s because there is dedicated time given over to learning. One of the challenges for my colleague Elaine, and I, is to look at how we can increase the number of workshops in parishes and produce resources that parishes will see as a valuable part of their faith formation. Your feedback and partnership with this venture is greatly appreciated and I welcome your thoughts.

You may think that the Bible has nothing to say about development education as it might be considered a more modern concept, but, the Bible does talk about educating and training, and of wisdom’s worth being far more important than gold. In the book of Proverbs 22:6 it says, “Train up a child in the way he should go; even when they are old they will not depart from it”.

While this verse is not specifically about development education, it is certainly my hope that the work we do in schools to empower young people, and to raise awareness of global issues in their lives, will be long-lasting and impact their actions forever.

Mark Booker, Senior Development Education Officer - SCIAF

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