This week’s meditation is dedicated to International Day for Eradication of Poverty which is celebrated on October 17.
Families in poverty often face stigma and punitive practices in places meant to help: schools, clinics, welfare offices, and child protection systems. Single mothers, Indigenous families, and historically discriminated groups report judgment and control that erode trust and agency, sometimes culminating in poverty-driven family separation with lasting emotional and social harm to children and parents.
To change course, the Day’s theme urges three shifts:
- From control to care: Design services that start with trust. Reduce punitive conditionalities, streamline documentation, and prioritize respectful, person-centred interactions.
- From surveillance to support: Rebalance investments away from monitoring and removal toward family-strengthening services: income support, quality childcare, adequate housing, mental health care, parenting support, and access to justice.
- From top-down to co-created solutions: Involve families living in poverty at every stage—assessment, design, budgeting, delivery, and evaluation—so policies reflect real needs and constraints. Learn more.
“The test of our progress is not whether we add more to the abundance of those who have much; it is whether we provide enough for those who have too little.” — Franklin D. Roosevelt, 32nd president of the United States
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