We are delighted to say that Sheffield Poverty Truth Commission has now officially launched!
Below are just a few highlights from the first month.
Launch Event at the Library Cafe: Thursday 26th September 2024
Our Launch event was a fantastic evening, where our Community Commissioners shared their stories through a range of artistic expressions. From powerful artwork and photography to compelling documentaries, drama pieces, and heartfelt speeches, their presentations captured the realities of poverty in Sheffield. The themes included in these presentations included Homelessness, Domestic Abuse, Young Carers, Post-code lotteries regarding access to services and just the sense of being overwhelmed with a system that feels stacked against them.
The event was attended by around 120 people, made up of our civic commissioners, steering group, and key individuals and organisations from across the city. It marked an important moment of listening, learning, and reflecting on how we can all work together to address poverty in our community.
Below are just a few comments from people who attended the event about how it made them feel:
“Brilliant to see an event that genuinely gave voice to people who face the struggle of life, rather than those in power”
“Heartwarming, emotional and deep. Thank you to all concerned”
“What a brave and wonderful thing to hear some many stories shared with such honesty and vulnerability”
“Can’t wait to see what happens next in Sheffield with Poverty Truth”
A huge thank you to our commissioners for their powerful contributions. This event is just the start of the conversation, and we look forward to continuing this important work as we move into the next phase.
The National Commissioners Gathering: 9th – 11th October 2024
It was a joy to be able to take three of our Commissioners (one Business and two Community) to the National Gathering in Swanwick.
As we had only just had our Launch event, some of them had never met before, but all found it to be a very fulfilling event.
Below is the mission statement which was agreed in our Sheffield small group and shared with the wider group at our first full commission gathering:
“Our poverty truth takes time. If we listen together, we can help one another. When we work together, we bring beautiful outcomes.
Our Poverty Truth is hard, not easy. It brings people together rather than being divisive. Our poverty truth believes in accountable, connected and grassroots change.”
We also created a Sheffield T-shirt which is below:
Full Commission Meeting 1 at Woodhouse Community Library: Thursday 17th October 2024
At our first full commission gathering, we explored the question: What is Poverty to Us?
We discussed this question in small groups, and discussions included:
- Needs not being met
- Stigma and shame
- Cliff edges in systems
- That there are many different kinds of poverty e.g fuel poverty, mental health poverty
- Lack of choice or access
- Not valued, forgotten or overlooked.
This word-cloud summarises some of our thoughts.
We then reflected on our thoughts from the Launch in the context of this first chat. The groups summarised these chats in one sentence below:
- We need to build the space to build relationships to enable a road forward.
- Everyone “giving multiple shits!” Big emotional stinky ones
- Trust, reality & understanding through hope (TRUTH)
We have already arranged a couple of social events in between our full commission meetings, which will be a great opportunity for relationships to form and trust to be built. We are also in the process of forming a social media team of Commissioners to work on how we’d like to communicate our story with the wider city.
We are really excited about where the next stage of our journey will take us. We have a great group of people who all bring something slightly different to the table, and we are looking forward to seeing what we can achieve together.
Andy Freeman: Facilitator
Zara Makinta: Facilitator
Ryan Wileman: Coordinator