Breaking the Poverty Circle in Disadvantaged Neighbourhoods
Comunitaria has been acknowledged by the High Commissioner in the “Break the Circle” awards for battling against child poverty. We have been awarded for our good practices in the fight against child poverty.
We talked in a previous article aboutthe ways in which poverty manifests itself. But did you know that poverty can be inherited from one generation to the next? This means that people can enter the cycle of poverty.
What are the causes of poverty? How can the poverty circle be broken? How does Comunitaria deal with this situation?
We look at these questions below.
What is the poverty cycle?
Children who are born into and grow up in a poor family are usually very likely to be poor as adults.
According to the Living Conditions Survey, more than 50% of children who grew up in poor households are poor as adults.
This transmission of poverty from parents to children leads to a reduction of equal opportunities for children born into poor families. This leads to them growing up with fewer opportunities than other children and makes it more difficult for them to change their way of life.
This is known as the poverty cycle, which is passed from parent to child and from generation to generation, making it impossible to break out of the cycle.
Did you know that Comunitaria has a social currency that fights
to reduce poverty in disadvantaged neighbourhoods?
What causes this vicious circle?
The main cause for a family to enter the poverty cycle is its employment situation. Moreover, the dominant factor for this to happen is that a family in a vulnerable situation already has children.
For example, when a couple is unemployed and out of work, they are likely to find themselves in temporary or indefinite poverty. However, the risk factor increases when this couple has children.
It is clear that if two adults cannot support themselves financially, the situation worsens if they have to support another person.
Poverty in disadvantaged neighbourhoods
Bearing in mind that people living in deprived areas are much more at risk of poverty, we can say that those in this situation are the most affected.
Moreover, the situation can be very worrying; often they are people who live in a troubled environment, with a rather low level of education and, consequently, have greater difficulties to get out of the circle of poverty.
How de we break the poverty cycle?
Now we know what the circle of poverty is, we can ask ourselves… How do we get out of it?
In the Spanish government, there is a High Commission against child poverty, whose main objective is to break the circle of poverty. There are many foundations, companies or institutions that implement actions to fight against child poverty and Comunitaria is one of them.
For this reason, Comunitaria has received the special award from the jury of the High Commissioner against child poverty, together with “la Caixa” Foundation, Pau Gasol or Rafa Nadal Foundation among others.
Comunitaria fights to reduce poverty in the most disadvantaged neighbourhoods through its social currency. This social currency is used so that families in vulnerable situations can consume fresh food from local shops fresh food from local shops.
