Hi.

Since a couple of days, ther has been interesting exchanges on the
topic of Meaningful participation-people on low-income. I just wanted
to share with you elements of the action of the Quebec collective for
a law against poverty that pertain exactly to the issue at stake. The
third principle of the bill tabled by the collective that prompted
the Quebec government to adopt unaninously its law against poverty
last december states that all the developments, legislative or other,
should be done with the constant participation of people in poverty.
All the work (be it the preparation of the bill, the political work
done to push for it, etc.etc.) done over the past 3-4 years by the
collective has systematically involved people in poverty in very
empowering manners. This is so important a feature of the whole
movement that the collective has received major funding for 5 years
(it is currently year 1) from the Chagnon foundation to systematize
the pedagoy developed up to now to do that, which draws heavily on
popular education techniques and espcially on a technique called
"carrefours de savoirs" (crossroads of knowledges).

These carrefours de savoirs  bring people from all walks of life (and
especially from low income ones) together so that they can
systematically interact on a precise topic. Such carrefours have been
done extensively on public finances to the point that the approach of
politcians as well as top civil servants of the minister of finance
of Quebec have been deeply transformed and that low income people
have been systematically included into the huis-clos (the black-out
day before the budget where selected people, usually journalists,
have access to the budget before everybody) of all Quebec budgets for
the past 3 years .

This is just an example of the type of things the project AVEC of the
Collectif is aiming to do over the next 4 years and you can contact
either Evelyne, Marie-Anne or Vivian who are attached to the project
at [log in to unmask] ; all this work has been done in French
up to now however and there are already significant results after one
year, notably a "cookbook" of activities that can be done in a
variety of context to work AVEC (with) low income people.
--
Michel O'Neill, Ph.D.

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Adresse Postale: Faculte des Sciences infirmieres; 4108-J Pavillon
Paul-Comtois, Universite Laval, Quebec, Qc, Canada, G1K 7P4.
Localisation de mon nouveau bureau: Faculte des Sciences infirmieres;
1038-F Pavillon Lacerte, Universite Laval, Quebec, Qc, Canada, G1K
7P4.
tel: +1-(418)-656-2131 #7431; telecopieur: +1-(418)-656-7825
Courrier electronique: [log in to unmask]
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