A self generated project
What if people living in poverty could take the lead on challenging the city’s leaders to work with them on tackling poverty? Would it make a difference to the decisions that are being made? Would new solutions to poverty be discovered? Would people listen and, if they did, would they better understand the challenges that poverty brings?
The Leeds Poverty Truth Challenge is an independent project, brought together by a number of different partners and hosted by Together for Peace. It aims to ensure that people who have experienced poverty first-hand are at the heart of how the city thinks and acts in tackling poverty and inequality.
Over a period of 18 months a group of civic and business decision makers and ‘experts by experience’ of poverty in Leeds meet together to build relationships, share experiences and think how might we respond to poverty more effectively.
Ordinary people are given the chance to relate their personal experiences of struggling against poverty. By creating safe spaces for people to tell their stories and opportunities for those making and influencing decisions to listen, the project deepens understanding of the difficult and entrenched issues of poverty, improves perceptions and challenges stereotyping, and leads to better decision making by the city’s leaders across business, public and voluntary sectors.
Since it began in 2014 in Leeds it has completed two complete commission cycles and is currently embarking on its third.
Watch this video for a quick overview and click here for more information