by Sara Forrest, Commission Member
Leeds Church Institute led this event on 3 November at Headingley Stadium.
Refreshingly most attendants were of working age! The organisations they worked for and volunteered with were wide ranging. The purpose was to engage people and organisations in setting up a coalition to fight local poverty in all its forms: material, health and spiritual.
A short film about what Leeds Rhinos and Jamie Jones Buchanan are doing to address homelessness was both informed and entertaining. He is so thankful for the opportunities he got because of being talent spotted and enrolled into the Rhinos Academy. As a young lad of his colour from an ordinary family in Bramley he had not expected to achieve so much in his life.
The first panel session was chaired by John Battle and was lively. It addressed what poverty is and how do we challenge the many misperceptions about why so many more people are falling into poverty Views expressed were as varied as the experience of those attending and rooted in their practical activities addressing the symptoms of poverty. Certainly, on my table there was a consensus that our organisations are all ‘sticking plasters’ over the gaps in state provision and we need to do more campaigning.
Workshops working on the barriers leading to poverty, what enables people to lift themselves out of poverty and what we can, and do do, to enable people to thrive followed. Increased individualisation was identified as a negative impact on responses to poverty.
Lunch was followed by a second panel chaired by Raheem. The focus here was on the importance of storytelling in engaging emotion and commitment to change. Penny Alexander was not the only person who teared up when talking about the powerful image of Kevin Sinflield lifting Rob Burrow from his wheelchair to cross the finish line in the first Rob Burrow Marathon! That emotional power was credited with the raising of £10,000,000 to open the Rob Burrow MND Centre.
The whole day was a stark reminder of how often those in poverty are isolated, unseen and unheard.
The plenary session then brought together the many themes emerging from the earlier sessions.
And the need for us to listen to those with no voice and enable them to tell their stories and engage those with the power to push the levers to alleviate poverty. Many people have stories that describe how material poverty and lack of opportunity so often develops into the vicious cycle of poor physical and mental health and debt.
Far fewer have stories like Jamie Jones.