Living with Poverty

Living with Poverty draws upon the value that speaking with those who are actually living with a challenge can play in understanding - and addressing - that development issue. Working with partners, Panos collected a series of oral testimonies from communities in the 4 countries listed above - where poverty is a daily reality. They illustrate the ways that poverty affects people, the ingenuity and resourcefulness they employ to meet basic needs, and the challenges they face in pursuing their rights. Through these stories, men and women in rural and urban communities present their own perspectives on the factors that impoverish people. "While discussions and documents on PRSPs are often technical and hard to understand for the non-specialist, the testimonies bring to life the reality of poverty and its daily oppressions." A selection of edited interviews from Pakistan, Zambia, and Kenya is currently available on the Living with Poverty website.

Members of the media have been closely involved in this process. Each country team consisted of several journalists (print and broadcast) as well as community workers living in or working with the communities where interviews were gathered. In each country, a 6-day training workshop was conducted, during which the teams learned about the different skills involved in oral testimony collection. They also participated in discussions covering the ethical issues involved, key elements of the PRSP process, and the background to the narrators' communities and their concerns. For example, in Kenya, Panos' partner was Abantu for Development. Journalists published articles in the national press and produced several talk shows based on the testimonies they collected. An information-sharing workshop was also held. Organised in conjunction with the Pastoralists Development Education Programme (PADEP), this workshop aimed to increase awareness of government processes and structures, especially those that relate to issues of poverty and rights. At a Gender and Governance Hearing, those involved in the project shared their findings, and created opportunities for narrators and others to communicate their perspectives. Ministers of Parliament (MPs), civic leaders and policy makers, and members of community-based organisations (CBOs) and self-help groups were present. According to Panos, Abantu continues to use the material generated by the oral testimony project to inform their lobbying for the implementation of poverty reduction strategies that incorporate the needs of people living in poverty, and also for their advocacy and networking activities, particularly in the area of human rights and gender. Similarly, collaborators in the Pakistan Living in Poverty project (Panos South Asia and Shirkat Gah, a national NGO working for women's empowerment and social justice) published print features in the local and national press, filmed and broadcast a television programme, and devised a piece of community theatre - all based on the interviews.

Poverty, Human Rights.

Published for International Day for the Eradication of Poverty (October 17), the testimonies show that poverty has different faces in different countries. In Zambia, for example, food insecurity and the human and economic costs of HIV and AIDS preoccupy the narrators. Joseph (28), from Kibagare, an urban slum on the outskirts of Nairobi, Kenya, talks candidly about overcrowding, lack of sanitation, demoralised and unemployed youth, the constant threat of eviction, and the deep divisions between the economically rich and economically poor. Nevertheless, "a number of underlying concerns are common to the different communities, such as the frustration of battling against entrenched power structures, and indifference and corruption among those meant to be representing their interests."

Panos London's head of oral testimony, Siobhan Warrington, says, "The value of these testimonies is that they are driven by what the narrators want to talk about. As a result they highlight not only the daily hardships of poverty but tell us what people actually living in poverty think needs to be done. These are the real voices that policy-makers should be listening to."

According to Panos London, "[f]ew of the city-based journalists had previously had the opportunity to visit the poor, often rural, communities that are among the most disadvantaged of their societies. For many, the experience of carrying out oral testimony interviews significantly altered the way they viewed poverty. They gained fresh insights on how poverty affects the lives of individuals, resulting in new angles, sources and story ideas." Editor's note: Photographs of some of the interviewees are available for journalists who wish to reproduce them to accompany the testimonies. Please contact Valentina Bau, valentina.bau@panos.org.uk, tel +44 0 20 7239 7609. The testimonies and photographs can be freely reproduced, but please credit Panos London, and send an email to media@panos.org.uk