We worked with child, young people, and organisations to explore poverty and how it affects children and young people. The result is this collection of photos, poems, artwork and stories.
Key Results
If New Zealand policies and services are to be successful in making things better for New Zealand children and young people through better responses to poverty, it is important to understand what poverty is for them and how they experience it. This project shows that we can learn from children and young people about how they have experienced and perceive poverty.
By engaging with and listening to children and young people we have the opportunity to:
• begin to understand some of the experiences and realities of childhood poverty
• gain insight into the issues and concerns that children in low-income households identify as important
• learn how policies and the provision of services impact on children’s lives
• gain valuable insights into how we can better meet their needs.
As Smith and Taylor (2000) state:
Giving more prominence to children’s voices is one way to ensure that child advocacy is well-founded and that decision-making is guided by a more complete picture of all the key issues.
We cannot see the views of the 56 children, 32 young people and eight adults involved in this project as necessarily being fully representative of what all children and young people living in poverty experience. However, their experiences are very similar to those reported in other studies. Some of the findings are expected. Of particular significance is the impact poverty and the economic hardship associated with it have on children and young people’s social relationships, social inclusion, school experience, sense of self and future prospects. Deep emotional costs were evident as many of the children and young people struggled to cope with the negative consequences of difference and disadvantage.