Save the Date: Challenge Poverty Week 2021

 Save the Date: Challenge Poverty Week 2021

Save the Date: Challenge Poverty Week England and Wales 2021, 11 – 17 October 2021.

After the success of last year’s Challenge Poverty Week England and Wales, CPW is back! It will take place from the 11 October, ending on the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty on Sunday 17 October.

Challenge Poverty Week has been a successful event in Scotland since 2013, and was held in London in 2018 and 2019. But was held for the first time across England and Wales in 2020.

It was a chance to share participants’ collective wisdom and resolve, and to harness the energy we need in the movement to end UK poverty. Projects around England and Wales took the opportunity to talk about their own work; a media guide, poetry anthology and short film were launched; there was regional and national media interest; and around 200 people attended at least one of our online events, focusing on different ideas, issues or regions.

Challenge Poverty Week England and Wales created the space for some really important conversations to take place. Conversations that recognised and affirmed the differences – and similarities – between poverty as experienced by people according to race, class, gender or sexual orientation.

We want to recreate the success of last year’s Challenge Poverty Week England and Wales again in 2021 by focusing on the theme community after Covid.

Participants are encouraged to consider what needs to change as we emerge from the pandemic, whose voices need to be heard, and who we should be walking alongside as we move forward together as a society.

As we look beyond Covid, we want the voices of people living in poverty and people challenging poverty to be more audible and prominent in public debate. We hope CPWEW will provide an opportunity for organisations responding to need in local neighbourhoods to become more vocal about the underlying causes of poverty and solutions.

We encourage participating organisations to work together with groups that have direct experience and insight of injustices around the way poverty links to race, gender, sexuality and regional inequalities. In doing so, CPWEW will build understanding and alliances.

This is an opportunity for everyone’s voices to be heard loud and clear. It’s a chance to focus attention on the need to tackle poverty – and to show the immense difference we could make to our society if we do.

Would you or your organisation be interested in organising an event for Challenge Poverty Week? Are there certain issues that affect you or your community that aren’t being talked about? Do you know of a local organisation that’s work could be highlighted during Challenge Poverty Week?

Contact jessica@church-poverty.org.uk for how to get involved.

Or sign up to our sessions Introduction to Challenge Poverty Week: How to get involved on 23 June at 6pm,  30 June at 2pm, 22 July at 2pm and 2 September at 6pm.