Challenging poverty

East Ayrshire’s Community Planning Partners' are committed to challenging poverty and its key messages are:

• too many people in East Ayrshire are living in poverty
• poverty in East Ayrshire is not inevitable and can be solved
• poverty has no place in a Kinder, Fairer, Connected East Ayrshire
• East Ayrshire Community Planning Partnership pledge to unstintingly work to tackle poverty and its impact on our communities

Challenge poverty week

Challenge Poverty Week is organised by the Poverty Alliance and this year ran from 7-13 October 2019. The aims of the campaign were to:

• challenge the stereotypes of the kind of people living in and affected by poverty
• highlight and showcase the solutions to poverty, and
• increase public support for action to solve poverty

The Community Planning Partners fully supported the Challenge Poverty Week initiative with a series of events and, beyond the campaign week, actively work to continue challenging poverty.

What we are doing

The Community Planning Partners supported Challenge Poverty Week and the aims of Poverty Alliance to highlight the growing problem of poverty, the causes of poverty and offer solutions to poverty.

Eddie Fraser, the Director of East Ayrshire Health and Social Care Partnership, Fiona Lees, the Chief Executive of East Ayrshire Council, Councillor Maitland, Councillor Reid and others made a commitment to “unstintingly work to tackle poverty and its impact on our communities” by signing a pledge at a series of events held across East Ayrshire.

These pledge signing events took place during Challenge Poverty Week to demonstrate the Community Planning Partners' commitment to working towards creating a just and compassionate society, where it is not acceptable for people to be trapped in the grip of poverty or put in impossible situations such as having to choose between heating their home or paying their rent.

All members of the community were invited along to the pledge signing events where information and assistance was available on benefits, fuel poverty and financial assistance to those who want it. 

The schedule of events

What you can do now

There is a real opportunity following Challenge Poverty Week for your own community to get involved and challenge poverty. Visit the Challenge Poverty or Poverty Alliance websites for more information.

You can also share this page with friends on Twitter and Facebook and you can still find information by searching for the campaign hashtags #ChallengePoverty #AyeWeCan

Child poverty action group

Further information

Further help and advice on poverty:

• Fuel poverty
• Food poverty
• Accessible finance
• Pensioner poverty
• Children living in poverty (Wean's World)