Focus:

Social Awareness

Objective:

To develop a deeper understanding of the daily challenges faced by those living in poverty – and how to bring attention to the need for lasting solutions to the problems of poverty in the United States.

Introduction:

Have you ever experienced poverty?  Some of us have lived it firsthand.  Others of us have only passed it on the street.  How closely you have seen poverty, touched it, experienced it, colors your perception of what it is like to actually live in poverty.

What does it mean to be living in poverty in America today?  Ask your group to take turns reading these quotes from people living in poverty. To emphasize and add drama, turn off the lights and shine a dim flashlight on the group members’ faces as they read, avoiding their eyes.

“It’s feeling that normal daily challenges are magnified one hundred times more, because I am that many more times powerless.”

“It’s things that you want you can’t have, places you want to live and can’t. We all have needs; being poor, those needs can’t be met.”

“Not being able to support my family on my income level. I grew up this way and thought it would be better for my family.”

“Being poor means not getting the same chances and needing to fight for everything.”

“Being poor means living is harder and quitting is easier.”

“It’s being almost invisible to almost everyone.”

“Being without what the middle class takes for granted.”

“Being poor in America is like going hungry at a banquet. It shouldn’t happen, but it does.”

“It feels like you’re looked down on, regardless of the reason for poverty.”

“On TV, life is seen as a workable situation. In reality it is a struggle just to put food on the table and pay for the necessities of life.”

“People with high paying jobs don’t understand your problems.”

“Being poor in America means working till you hurt and always coming up short.”

“It’s being scared and afraid not knowing what tomorrow will be like.”

(Source: Catholic Campaign for Human Development Poverty in America Survey, 2001.)

Right now in the United States, 37 million people are living in a state of poverty.  And of that total, more than 12.9 million are children under the age of 18.  According to the U.S. Census Bureau, people under the age of 18 have a higher poverty rate than those in any other age group.  That’s one out of every six children in America, living in a state of poverty, “scared and afraid, not knowing what tomorrow will be like.”

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