On February 7, 2019, the Saskatoon Poverty Reduction Partnership (SPRP) launched
12 Bold Ideas was informed by feedback from 350 partners, agencies, government, leaders, policy makers and people with diverse experiences of poverty. Adhering to SPRP’s commitment to the principle “nothing about us without us,” people with lived experience were the strategy’s dominant contributors. Over its development, 35 experts with lived experience shared their stories and visions by way of 480 phone conversations, 1780 emails, 15 sharing circles, 65 shared stories, and 5 mentorships.
SPRP’s strategy was founded on the recognition that racial, ethnic, and cultural minorities experience higher rates of discrimination, social isolation, exclusion, criminalization, and poverty. Conventional systems designed to help people can instead perpetuate systemic racism and can impede access to basic needs and essential services.
At its close, the strategy asks readers to reflect on this example family to identify ways that we could re-write the story of poverty in Saskatoon. What would it look like if: the characters had the income and assets required to meet their needs; their experiences with poverty opened up possibilities for healing instead of a revolving door of poverty and pain; and, systems were connected so that they didn’t have to worry about being at the wrong place all the time?
SPRP asks its readers to first think about why the 12 bold ideas should be implemented, then encourages them to reflect on the limitless ways that they and their organizations can support the strategy’s implementation and evaluation. The group envisions that, if implemented using evidence-based practice, in a trauma informed way, with long term goals in sight, Saskatoon could become one of the most equitable cities in Canada.
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