Greater Sudbury Poverty Challenge

PDF version (PDF, 2 MB)

In December 2018, Public Health Sudbury & Districts hosted a one-day poverty simulation event called the Greater Sudbury Poverty Challenge. The event was held in partnership with the Partners to End Poverty steering committee, which includes agencies across Greater Sudbury that provide guidance to the Circles Sudbury poverty reduction initiative. The event was designed to raise awareness about the realities of living in poverty and to reaffirm the commitment to poverty reduction.

View how leaders from Greater Sudbury learned firsthand the challenges individuals in our community face as they struggle to meet their basic needs.

Poverty challenge goals

Provide an authentic experience to participants to increase their understanding about the realities of living poverty.
Increase compassion and inspire sustained commitment to poverty reduction efforts.

Who attended?

Forty-three community leaders and decision-makers from across Greater Sudbury participated in the challenge.

What was the challenge?

Each participant was given the profile of a person and asked to “live” their given profile.

Each profile was developed based on the lived experiences of Sudburians connected with the Circles Sudbury initiative.

Each profile came with a series of environments for participants to navigate given a limited set of resources and time. Participants were asked to manage a range of common community agency encounters like applying for Ontario Works, accessing food from the Food Bank, or travelling between agencies using the Transit System.

Representatives from seventeen community agencies were present to interact with participants, adding greater depth to the event.

Participant feedback

All participants were invited to share their immediate reactions of the event in small group debrief sessions.

These words summarize prominent sentiments shared by participants at debrief sessions during the event:

barriers
confusing
demoralizing
difficult
dignity
frustrating
inconsistent
lost
non-entity
overwhelming
struggling
support
unproductive
waiting

Survey highlights

Participants were also invited to complete a voluntary survey following the event. The survey assessed participant’s opinions regarding the event and attitudes towards poverty in our community. Thirty-four of the 43 participants completed the survey.

A Meaningful Experience

97%

found the Poverty Challenge a valuable experience

Raised Awareness

85%

had a better understanding of the financial pressures of poverty

91%

had a better understanding of the relationship between poverty and health

91%

had a better understanding of how people in poverty have different access to resources than those not in poverty

Inspired Change

100%

felt that the current levels of poverty in the community are unacceptable

97%

felt inspired to change

91%

felt that additional training would be beneficial

100%

were committed to improving cross-sectoral collaboration in our community

Top Focus Areas for Poverty Reduction

The top five areas community leaders have identified as focus areas for poverty reduction efforts were:

59%

for mental health supports

59%

for housing

47%

for transportation

44%

for children’s services

44%

for health card

Participant testimonials

“Modelling the event after the lives of real people made the challenge much more meaningful. It was great to have individuals with lived experiences participate in the event, as it made the challenge less theoretical and more focused on actual struggles in our City (some of which may have otherwise gone unnoticed).”
“All we are doing is helping people cope, we are not changing or improving the system.”
“Life focus was in accessing services instead of living your life.”
“The life that you are living is parked as you try to get all of these supports.”

Acknowledgements

Public Health Sudbury & Districts is extremely grateful to the following for their support with the Greater Sudbury Poverty Challenge.

Individuals from the community who shared their personal stories and worked with us to develop profiles for the event.
Agencies who participated in the event by representing themselves in the simulation.
Albert Adult Learning Centre for hosting the event.
Partners to End Poverty Steering Committee for their leadership and support of the event.
The Kingston Community Roundtable on Poverty Reduction for permission to use and adapt the Poverty Challenge¹

This event would not have been possible without support from these partnerships.

List of community agencies represented

Public Health Sudbury & Districts adapted with permission materials from a poverty simulation toolkit developed by members of the Kingston Community Roundtable on Poverty Reduction called The Poverty Challenge. The toolkit is based on a model where individual profiles are created based on real people living in the community in question. Public Health Sudbury & Districts adapted the model to incorporate actual representatives from local community agencies into the simulation as well to incorporate additional community perspectives and voices to the event.

This item was last modified on May 5, 2020