Sadia's blog - February 2017

Jane and Sadia, two of our new Commissioners will be blogging each month, sharing their thoughts, experiences and what it means to be a Poverty Truth Commissioner.

In the second of the series, Sadia reflects on the struggles of families 

within her community, and the wisdom contained therein.

A lot of people do not notice how we are suffering from poverty.

A lot of people do not have money and the money they have it's not enough.  They live with poverty and as a result they always go for food bank. They walk miles and miles away with children looking for food banks.  They have to rely on food banks, and they do not even provide enough food.  How long will we have to live like this?

They can’t afford to top up when they have this kind of poverty.  They get a lot of mental health problems such a small thing.  When somebody have 4-5 children with some of them teenagers, even a can of food is not enough for them.  They need a bus pass some of them to go to school and the parent cannot afford it.

Poverty comes in many forms, it does not only affect the mothers mental health but also children, for example young people in school can be bullied, mocked and experience pressure from peer groups because of the way they look - this is the kind of poverty that is very common in our communities.

Another issue is the Job Centre sanctions. This has affected some members of our communities. Every day a woman is worried about how to provide for and feed her family. How is she going to manage to feed her family now she has been sanctioned? How is she going to cope with all this poverty?

I think we are all human, we have to think about how we can work together to end this poverty.