Wellbeing through Inclusion Socially & Economically (WISE) began in the summer of 2003, as one woman's vision. In exasperation with a system that seemed to have no heart, "Chris" wrote her story of painful marginalization. With the urging of friends, the story came to the attention of an understanding Programs Officer at Status of Women Canada. Together, they convinced Chris to write a proposal for the WISE project. The rest, as they say, is history. WISE is now a grassroots group of citizens whose goals include: - raising the collective voice of persons living in poverty due to policies of exclusion - changing public understanding of poverty as a socioeconomic inevitability, to poverty as a condition of social and economic exclusion - having policymakers recognize that the worsening economic situation of an increasing number of British Columbians has a systemic cause We see our task as primarily being to change public perception and understanding of what poverty is and how the cycle of poverty is possible. Until this occurs, policymakers and politicians are unlikely to do more than pay lip service to the increasing problem of poverty in BC. WISE's current project "Policies of Exclusion, Poverty and Mental Health: Stories from the Front," is collecting stories from Cowichan Valley women who are living at or below Canada's Low Income Cut Offs (LICOs). We encourage interested parties to visit our website at http://www.wise- bc.org/ ------------------- Problems/Questions? Send it to Listserv owner: [log in to unmask] To post a message to all 900+ subscribers, send it to [log in to unmask] Include in the Subject, its content, location and date, if relevant. To unsubscribe, send the following message to [log in to unmask] SIGNOFF SDOH For a list of SDOH members, send the following message to [log in to unmask] REV SDOH To receive messages only once a day, send the following message to [log in to unmask] SET SDOH DIGEST To view the SDOH archives, go to: http://listserv.yorku.ca/archives/sdoh.html