Scotland is a country that believes in justice and compassion. These values guide the anti-poverty movement in all that we do – including the design and delivery of our campaigning activities.
Campaigning is central to the anti-poverty movement. Every year over 400 organisations come together to raise their voice against poverty during Challenge Poverty Week. Across civil society organisations lead vital campaigns, from a push for fair and sustainable third sector funding, to an Essentials Guarantee in Universal Credit, from locally-based movements for Better Buses, and national campaigning on fairer taxation.
Our sector is approaching a critical period for action. Despite welcome rhetoric from the Scottish Government, we are not currently on track to meet our child poverty targets, and the new UK Government take office at a time when data shows a trend for deepening poverty across the UK. The voice of civil society organisations in pushing for the changes needed to end the injustice of poverty is more important than ever.
As we face these challenges, we must consider how best to turn our campaigning energy into tangible changes that will impact on the lives of people living on low incomes. This year, the Poverty Alliance annual conference will focus on how we make change happen. What strategies are open to our sector as we push for a Scotland free from poverty? How do we learn from existing, successful campaigns? How do we engage more groups and individuals? How do remain resilient in the face of setbacks? And how can we apply this learning to our core policy priorities across child poverty, better public services, the Minimum Income Guarantee and social security reform at the UK level?
The charitable sector in Scotland involves more than 45,000 organisations, employing 135,000 people and more than 1.1 million volunteers involved. We need to turn those numbers into real political pressure, by getting organised and demanding the system change we talk so often about.
This is a chance to discuss how we organise for change, from the grassroots to the national level, to learn from each other about what works and when, and to help shape the anti-poverty movement’s campaigning priorities for the coming years.
Draft Programme
Morning
08:45 Registration
10:00 Opening Plenary: Building our Power
The opening session will consider some of the big themes that will be explored during the conference. We will be joined by Dr Danny Sriskandarajah, Chief Executive of the New Economics Foundation and author of ‘Power to the People’, and by Roz Foyer, (invited) General Secretary of the Scottish Trades Union Congress and Laura Young, (invited) award winning climate campaigner
11.35-12.35 - Morning Workshops: Tactics: Our options for making change
Morning sessions will be an opportunity to explore how we build successful campaigns, looking at tactics and opportunities to build a strong movement around core priorities.
- Grassroots up: getting our communities organised
How do we ensure that communities affected by poverty and social injustice are at the heart of campaigns? There are rich traditions for us to draw on. This session will look at practical examples of organising and engaging communities.
- Building coalitions for change
Broad based campaigns are increasingly central to making change. How do we build successful coalitions that allow us to unite across boundaries. We will hear about some of the successful examples of broad based coalitions that have had an impact.
- Influencing Policy: What’s effective?
As campaigners our is to change policy, practice and systems. How do we best do this from the outside, and how do we ensure that we are not ‘captured’ by policy processes, no matter how important they are? Here we’ll look at what has worked over the last 25 years of devolution.
- Digital organising
Online activism can often have a bad reputation, dismissed at ‘clicktivism’. However our digital strategies can enable us to mobilise and engage with a wider audience, but they must also complement our offline campaigns. This session will consider how can digital organising tactics be more powerful and impactful.
Lunch (12.35-13.25)
Afternoon: What Are We Fighting For? (13.30-14.30)
The anti-poverty movement is working across a range of policy areas to bring about the change needed to build a Scotland free from poverty. These campaigns are directed to UK, Scottish and Local Government, focused on our social security system; public services and our labour market. The afternoon sessions will be focused on how we apply the campaigning tactics discussed earlier in the day to the key issues facing the anti-poverty sector. What campaigning options will be most effective in meeting these pressing challenges?
- A Scotland where we all have access to an adequate income
After over 10 years of cuts and restrictions, our social security system is failing the people it is intended to support. We also continue to see structural problems in our labour market relating to low wages, declining job quality and increasing precarity. How do we build a labour market and social safety net that ensures everyone has access to an adequate income?
- Achieving a Just Transition: Tackling poverty and the climate crisis
People living on low-incomes are disproportionately impacted by the impacts of the climate crisis. However, government policy-making on the just transition has not always placed tackling poverty and inequality at its heart. How do we work together to make sure that we can tackle these shared goals?
- Achieving safe, affordable housing for all
Access to a warm, safe and sustainable home is the cornerstone of a good life. Yet this is a human right that too many people are being denied due to inadequate housing. Where do we go next to ensure everyone has access to an affordable, accessible and safe home that meets their needs?
- Tax Justice: Where next for funding the fight against poverty?
Better tax builds better budgets, which builds a better future for all of us. The Scottish Government have taken some steps to make our taxation system more progressive. There are increasing calls for the UK and Scottish Government to take steps to better tax wealth. How do we build a coalition for further reform?
Afternoon (14.50-16.00)
Closing Session: Delivering change: putting our experience into practice
Campaigning for change can be a slow process, and it is important to celebrate our successes. Building on the discussions we have held throughout the day, our closing plenary will be an opportunity to learn from campaigns which have achieved social, political and policy changes.
This will be an interactive session with the chance to work in small groups to identify what we should do more of; what we should do less of; and how we can work together to build a Scotland free from poverty.
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