Poverty-Awareness Festival, Utrecht, TV Program Extract

During the week of the World Day for Overcoming Extreme Poverty, the Utrecht Poverty Coalition (Armoedecoalitie) in The Netherlandss organised a successful week-long festival of awareness-raising and activities about poverty for and with people who experience poverty themselves.

This link shows an extract in Dutch from a TV program of the festival. The main elements of the program were:

- Link of the festival to the 31st anniversary of October 17.

- The importance of the World Day to overcome shame.

- Poverty is also about the way people can participate in society.

- A drama created by a group of young people on the topic of living with little money.

- A beautiful testimony of a young woman: "As a child I couldn't sleep because I worried for my parents living in poverty. You are aware ofnot being being stupid, and that your parents suffer from poverty, That awareness was more important for me than the fact of having nothing to eat sometimes, or not being able to pay for washing our clothes. The mental harm that poverty causes is great. I got out of poverty by studying and becoming a social worker: that gave me the strength to turn the negative things I went through into a positive asset to help others to know that 'I am someone', and to see their strength."

- A representative from an NGO supporting children to access art and culture.

- A local politician speaking about how financial support is possible for income and health issues.

- The final message: Let's not hide poverty. Talk to one another about poverty!