Poverty Truth Commission to lift lid on reality of disadvantaged people

Disadvantaged people from Glasgow will be giving their accounts of poverty at Scotland’s first Poverty Truth Commission on 21 March.

The Poverty Truth Commission at Glasgow City Chambers will be hosted by the Rt Rev David Lunan, the Moderator of the General Assembly of the Church of Scotland and attended by some of Scotland’s senior civic leaders and politicians.

The commission has its origins in the Truth and Reconciliation Commission of post-apartheid South Africa, where victims of the violent and cruel regime were encouraged to tell their stories.

The aim of the Poverty Truth Commission is to give people struggling against poverty an opportunity to have a say in the decisions that affect them in their lives. Issues to be addressed will include youth violence, supporting grandparents, in-work poverty and the benefits trap.

Leaders at the commission will hear from the experiences of some of Scotland’s most disadvantaged with the aim of tackling poverty.

The Rev Martin Johnstone, of the Church of Scotland Ministries Council, and one of the organisers of the event said: “The question is how do you overcome poverty? The answer is to ask those who experience it, rather than those who only know it in their heads.

"Poverty can be overcome in Scotland –but only if we are prepared to take seriously the wisdom of those who really know about it.”