Wish Upon a Seren

The Joseph Rowntree Foundation and the Bevan Foundation are inviting us all to think about what Wales would be like without poverty.

There is the factual-style answer – such a Wales would see virtually full employment on the Living Wage, for example. But that is to understand poverty in a superficial way. Even if we achieved a better paid workforce and more jobs, would that really root out the profound and complicated poverty we know exists among us?

Suppose we look at one life born into a future Wales and see what we would want for her.

Let’s call her Seren.

We’ll give her all the pre-birth advantages, of course. Her mum and dad planned and wanted her and her mother had a healthy pregnancy and excellent ante-natal care.

Her crucial first two years are full of love and attention. She gets read to and cuddled by all the adults around her, with the certainty that consistency and clear boundaries give. Then she goes to nursery and school where excellent teaching and resources support the efforts of her parents. She eats well and burns off her energy in the well-equipped playground near her home.

By the time Seren goes to ‘big school’ she’s a confident and vibrant kid with lots of interests her parents are able to support. By year nine it’s clear she’s going to be an architect or an engineer. Her school arranges for her to meet role models in these professions. By now Seren has the self belief to negotiate her relationships and control her own fertility. She is ambitious for her own future and for her own community and country.

When you zoom in on one person, you can clearly see how Seren’s life could be blighted in today’s Wales.

Every new life is a glorious but vulnerable possibility.  Seren’s ‘time twin’ born today could easily become a depressed, excluded teen on the brink of having an early baby to fill her emotional void. Or she could be trapped in a violent relationship or addiction. Or both.

There is no quick fix for the poverty of experience and expectation, but one thing is for sure – people have to be in charge of change in their own lives, not just preached at. That is why Oxfam’s Cymru’s 13 projects in Wales are aimed squarely at putting people in the driving seat of their own lives. We call it the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach. There are many external barriers we campaign to remove, such as the punitive sanctions regime and Bedroom Tax, but until every citizen can take control and build confidence in a meaningful future, they will be vulnerable to repeating damaging cycles. Our work is small scale, but it’s proving effective.

We meet people every day who have been dealt atrocious hands in the game of life.

People who have missed so much school they can’t read or write. Abuse survivors, those with untreated mental illness or plain old deep-rooted despair. Man hands down misery to man. But amazingly, everyone has the potential for change if they are given the opportunity. Help people identify their main problems and support them to solve them and they can move on. It may take time, but we see it happen again and again. Often the first symptom of change is an iron determination to improve things for the next generation.  

So as well as getting the basic conditions for a good life in place, such as decent jobs and good services, we need a plan to roll out across Wales to support people to take control of their own lives so that families can take the long walk out of entrenched poverty and into a brighter future for those yet unborn – like Seren.

http://www.oxfam.org.uk/cymru/poverty-in-wales

Kirsty Davies is Head of Oxfam Cymru 

Tell us what YOU think a Wales without poverty would be like in our short survey here.