Definitions of Poverty in Scotland and the EU

"Poverty is defined relative to the standards of living in a socieity at a specific time. People live in poverty when they are denied an income sufficient for their material needs and when these circumstances exclude them from taking part in activities which are an accepted part of daily life in that society." --Scottish Poverty Information Unit "There are basically three current definitions of poverty in common usage: absolute poverty, relative poverty and social exclusion: Absolute poverty is defined as the lack of sufficient resources with which to keep body and soul together. "Relative poverty defines income or resources in relation to the average. It is concerned with the absence of material needs to participate fully in accepted daily life. "Social exclusion is a new term used by the Government. The Prime Minister described social exclusion as 'a shorthand label for what can happen when individuals or areas suffer from a combination of linked problems such as unemployment, poor skills, low incomes, poor housing, high crime environments, bad health and family breakdown.' " The House of Commons Scottish Affairs Comittee "Persons, families and groups of persons whose resources (material, cultural and social) are so limited as to exclude them from the minimum acceptable way of life in which they belong."

The European Union's working definition of poverty.

Robert Owen at New Larnark

Presumably, anyone who has seriously studied the history of social justice since the beginning of the Industrial Revolution is familiar with the name, Robert Owen. In my class on the history of the union movement at Brown University, we learned about Owen as one of the myriad of social reformers whose work influenced present-day working conditions. Yet, it was only after a visit to New Larnark, Scotland (forty minutes by train, from our flat), that his story came alive. Owen believed that the environment in which one lives and works is critical to the formation of character. As the manager and subsequently the owner of textile mills, he was appalled by the way some workers were being treated -- children as young as five or six working thirteen hours a day in miserable factories. When he was able to buy the New Lanark mills from his father-in-law, David Dale, in 1800, he set about creating a just environment that would lead to strong character. He believed that "that society may be formed so as to exist without crime, without poverty, with health greatly improved, with little if any misery, and with intelligence and happiness increased a hundredfold." Thanks to Owen's innovations, the 2,500 people (workers and their families) who lived in New Lanark were provided adequate housing, with child-care centers and schools for the children from age 3, and available for all the residents for a life time, with free health care in company clinics, with cultural and recreational activities and a village store that bought in bulk and sold at cost. All this in the expectation that a good environment contributes to peace and harmony. Many of his entrepreneurial peers were critical, questioning why he would sacrifice some of his own profits to benefit his workers. But his values were different. "The governing principle of trade, manufactures and commerce is immediate pecuniary gain, to which on the great scale, every other is made to give way. All are sedulously trained to buy cheap and sell dear; and to succeed in this art, the parties must be taught to acquire strong powers of deception, destructive of that open, honest sincerity without which man cannot make others happy , nor enjoy happiness themselves." (1816) During those years he wrote and spoke extensively, hoping that his vision would change the industrial landscape throughout Great Britain. In 1825 he left New Lanark in order to give full time to promoting his reform movement. Opposition from contemporary capitalists mounted, with enough strength to eviscerate the reform legislation that he had promoted in Parliament. Undaunted, he established a utopian community in New Harmony, Illinois, hoping the New World would be more receptive to his reforms. Robert Owen is today called the father of socialism, and is remembered as a pioneer in public education as well as the founder of the cooperative movement. He is also the co-founder of the Grand National Consolidated Trade Union, a trade movment union that failed because of opposition from the government. All this is vividly communicated in a visit to the beautifully restored factory village of New Lanark. The school house, the factory, the village store, the health clinic and the worker's housing are all still there to visit. Some of the looms still operate, making yarn of great value. So much to be learned! Our struggle for economic equality has a long and glorious history and we can be proud to continue the campaign for justice to which others have contributed so massively. We may not totally share Owen's optimism in the perfectibility of human character, but I would rather cast my lot with him than with another Scotsman who believed that an invisible hand, operating in a free market economy, would bring about social and economic justice. THE PROBLEM IS WEALTH, NOT POVERTY: A comment from Thomas Wooler in Black Dwarf, 1817. "It is very amusing to hear Mr. Owen's talk of remoralizing the poor. Does he not think that the rich are a little more in wnat of remoralizing, and particularly that class of them that has contributed to demoralize the poor, if they are demoralized, by supporting measures that have made them poor and which now continue them poor and wretched?"

Margo Uprichard

Whenever members of the Transformation Team speak, lead workshop and even when they lead worship services, they engage all the people in some kind exercise or action project. In the workshop picture below, Margo Uprichard, in the black sleeveless, is leading a workshop on worship. She has asked the people to write out a description of living conditions in their, mostly poor, neighborhoods, and on the other side of the river they have written elements of the worship of their congregation. The discussion asks how can people build a bridge between real life situations and the worship of the church.

A NEW APPROACH TO VOLUNTEETING

Margo Uprichard is Training and Development Worker with the Transformation Team. The primary goal of enlisting volunteers is to develop and build relationships across faith and economic lines --- quite different from the way we regard volunteers in the U.S. where we try to enlist someone to accomplish a task that needs to be done. Here, in Scotland, volunteers and projects are matched up with each other in a way that will be beneficial to both. Imagine, for example, connecting people with a successful employment history with projects operating in the poorest neighborhoods and supporting the two to work together so that tasks are completed, skills are transferred, insight is gained into the injustice and the challenges of poverty. Thus, people are given an opportunity to live out their faith in a very practical sense. The relationship supports each to grow in self-understanding, confidence and appreciation of the other.

Within the poorest areas self-esteem can be very low among residents, many of whom have never worked, and the move to volunteering can be the first step up the ladder to employment. People who don't recognize their own talents and skills and so feel ill-equipped to even consider employment, come to appreciate they have much to offer.

The national drive for helping people overcome exclusion from main stream society and set them on the road to employment is funded in part by the Scottish government's volunteer strategy, and this is actively encouraged by reimbursing volunteers's travel expenses, other out-of-pocket exenses and in some cases child care. The government also largely funds Volunteer Development Scotland, an umbrella organization established in 1984 and recognized as a center of excellence in all matters related to volunteering in Scotland.

Once a volunteer has registered with the Transformation Team, a program of mentoring and monitoring is put in place to support the relationship with the project and intervening when it makes sense to do so.

There are many more aspects of the volunteering process that I will write about later, as I learn more.

First Photos

This is the church where the Priority Areas office is located.

The Priority Areas Team (left to right) Martin Johnstone, Lynn MacLellan, Paul, Gayle, and Noel Mathias

This message was printed on the blackboard in our apartment when we first arrived.

TRANSFORMATION TEAM

The Transformation Team is a group of ten employees -- both Christian and Muslim -- who support the projects of the Priority Areas. Each of the ten specializes in some aspect of community development. For example, Andy Whittet is a community profiler. When a local congregation or a community group in one of the Priority Areas seeks the help of the Transformation Team, after a series of meetings with residents of that area to determine that the Transformation Team is an appropriate group to work with them, Andy does an in-depth demographic study of that area to help the local congregation better understand the community in which they are located. The 35-page profile that Andy showed us for the area where Gayle and I are living, details data and analysis of the age, education, religion, employment, income, housing costs and the health of the residents of the area. This is an invaluable resource to any congregation that wants to determine the needs of the community they would like to serve. They are helped is this assessment by other members of the Transformation Team. When finally the local congregation decides what they would like to do to improve the quality of life in their neighborhood, a consultant is hired to do a feasibility study -- an action plan to achieve their goals. Often, the congregation will need to raise major money to meet these goals. One of the functions of the Team is to help the local group raise funds. Regular workshops are held throughout the city using the title "Fit for Funding," led by Team member David Zabiega, to help the local group prepare the proposal and locate sources of funds. I'll be writing more about this whole process after we see it in action.

PRIORITY AREAS / SCOTLAND

What does it look like when a major institution in a country accepts the challenge to end poverty? Scotland, a country of approximately 5.5 million inhabitants publicly acknowledges that a significant percentage of the population is being economically left behind. After the University of Glasgow identified poor areas from around the country The Church of Scotland took up the challenge to work intentionally with parishes and community groups in the poorest five percent --53 “Priority Areas,” 34 of which are located in Glasgow, a city of about 600,000 people, with the goal of eliminating poverty. The comprehensive program includes creating and encouraging dozens of other organizations and initiatives that are seeking to overcome the isolation and exclusion of poor people from the resources available to the larger community.

The faith community throughout Scotland is increasingly aware that poverty is the defining social issue facing the land, and the churches, especially from the poor areas are in the lead in a growing movement to end poverty. I heard someone at one of our meetings say that wealthy churches seem to be stifled by their wealth, (materially rich and spiritually poor) while the poor churches are developing innovative and transformative new ministries. We witnessed how this change is taking place when Gayle and I attended a forum of the Priority Areas. Thirty people had gathered, ten leaders from The Church Scotland headquarters in Edinburgh and the others from several Priority Areas churches. After fresh scones, coffee and tea, an older man named Bill described the deterioration of his community caused mostly by the deindustrialization of the past thirty years: “There are now problems of anti-social behavior, alcoholism, drug addiction, domestic violence, vandalism, many others.” His church, the Barlanark Greyfriars Parish church was totally demoralized as membership shrunk and the bills piled up. “We were well aware of the deprivation in our area, but our heads were buried in the sand, worrying abut how to meet the next bill. But then we heard Martin Johnstone speak and we caught a new vision of how we could be serving our community. With help from the Priority Areas team we have started a feasibility study to see what the community needs and how we can meet those needs.” The church, focusing on the needs of the surrounding area, is bounding back. Where there was despair there is now hope.

Later at the forum, each guest from church headquarters in Edinburgh was asked to consider two ways that their departments could establish programs to help rid the country of the scourge of poverty, and to pledge to the group that they would follow up with these programs. On hearing the list, the poor people promised that they would be visiting the guests in a few weeks to monitor progress. Clearly they are becoming a force to be reckoned with in the society and will not be still until they see positive change.

I think I first heard it from Willie Baptist, Poverty Scholar in Residence, at Union Theological Seminary in New York, and I heard it again in a sermon at a Priority Areas service today: poverty will never be ended until the world wide faith community supports the campaign. That is our challenge.