For Challenge Poverty Week we will be highlighting and sharing information and statistics about Poverty in Scotland. The Poverty Alliance is running this week annually to highlight that Poverty is a problem we can solve with specific solutions! We will be adding our voice to others across Scotland to help challenge stereotypes and sign post to services that can help anyone living in poverty. 

Our Vice President Welfare, Jordan, will be touring about the campuses this week, offering a hot drink to anyone who wants to stop for a chat. Come and have a sit down for a chat with Jordan over a cuppa on the following dates, times, and locations:

Monday 4th 12-2pm Milton reception/entrance area

Tuesday 5th 12-2pm Granton Hub

Wednesday 6th 12-2pm and 3-4pm in Sighthill Atrium

Thursday 7th 12-2pm Midlothian outside ECSA office

Jordan's blog about Challenge Poverty Week 2021

As some of you will have seen on our social media, this week is challenge poverty week and I have been posting regularly about some of the main issues people facing poverty struggle with. I thought I'd share some of my thoughts from this week and in general, so bear with me!

This week is a rally cry for us all to unite and say enough is enough, poverty shouldn’t be a part of our daily lives, it should not and will not be tolerated. The Politicians and services that are meant to serve the public, to serve in yours and my best interests need to act. They need to step up and commit to their job by ensuring the public they serve are able to live a life where everyone has a place they can call their home, where a person’s most basic needs are completely met. These are not some out there ideals, these are basic human rights. But to gain their attention we all need to voice our need for change, we need to use our voices to challenge poverty.

Here is my honest opinion on why challenge poverty week is so important and we should all take note of at least one aspect of poverty. Poverty shouldn’t be an umbrella term we use. Why? Because as I hope you are learning through the week, poverty comes in many shapes and sizes. It affects people in a variety of ways. These individual struggles people face from their unique poverty simply should not be a daily struggle, where people have to juggle between basic hygiene and food, where children don’t take part in activities that they are interested in because their family can’t afford to support them to take part, parents can’t afford to support their children and themselves without having to make compromises.

As I said the idea of people not having to comprise between two basic costs of living is not an ideal it is a basic human right. But how we achieve that is through challenging poverty in all its forms by joining with others who have the same ideas and working together, so we can show our politicians that these are the basic things they should be ensuring that we have.

So, I ask you all, if you have seen something this week that has made you think “that’s not right” or “I have struggled with this myself and I wish I could help”. I ask you to make your voice heard check out some of the websites we have linked in the Instagram posts, look around on our website, because many of the support originations we list also run campaigns or look for volunteers. Look around you community and ask if there are any local projects you could get involved in, email your MSP or MP.

I know it doesn’t sound like much, but as a student officer, I have seen first-hand what can happen when a group of voices comes together saying the same thing and how big an impact it can have on our lives. IF you need an example look back at the last 12 months where football players helped rally the public and collectively made the government rethink their school meals plan or more locally, when NUS campaigned with student officers to for digital devices and secured £5 million in digital funding.

Now it’s our turn to make our voices heard and to challenge poverty.

Jordan, VP Welfare

Check out our list of support organisations that might be helpful. If you have any questions or you would like to hear more, please get in touch.