I agree with David Zitner. I’m a woman living below the poverty line whose
health has deteriorated in tandem with my financial condition. Perhaps the
3 billion will ensure I get tended to when I need acute care? In the
meantime, it feels like the misspent 3 billion is just one more nail in my
coffin, and I and others like me will continue on the road to early death.
Clearly, life for those living in poverty – never mind our quality of
life - is a non-issue for politicians.

I’m currently conducting a project that explores the links between
policies of exclusion and poverty - without the appropriate means to get
about in my largely rural community. I must walk everywhere: to network,
to meet with media, to interview participants. It's not easy finding
locations that are accessible to both participants and myself.

The marginalized poor, in other words, are not only challenged to have
energy left to advocate or seek solutions for themselves, they are kept
physically without the means to do so. Of the women contacting me, most
haven’t a telephone. How are people expected to find work when they cannot
easily be reached? More important, what happens in an emergency?

The women joining this project are angrily and desperately trying to claw
their way out of poverty. Yet added to the stress of not having adequate
food, shelter, clothing, or dental, pharmaceutical and medical care are
prohibitive government policies. It’s as though resourcefulness and
thinking for oneself are not allowed. One of our women said it
succinctly: “I fought to get away from the control of an abusive husband;
now I am controlled by an abusive system.”

----------------

I ‘fess up. I’ve gone off on a rant. But I’m soooo angry. Every time I
read about more money being spent here, there, anywhere but to addressing
social and economic exclusion, I feel that much more disheartened.

Chrystal Ocean, Coordinator
Wellbeing through Inclusion Socially & Economically
http://www.wise-bc.org/

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