This Challenge Poverty Week marks two years since the launch of the Edinburgh Poverty Commission’s landmark report – A Just Capital: Actions to End Poverty in Edinburgh.
So much has happened since the publication of the Commission’s findings, and in November this year the City of Edinburgh Council will publish the second of its annual series of progress reports giving details on the local actions underway in the city to meet the calls to action set out by the Commission. Amongst a range of activity underway, this year the report will focus on actions taken to:
- Address the cost of living crisis for people struggling to get by in Edinburgh
- Promote the real living wage and help people into good, fair work
- Prevent homelessness and improve the supply of social rented and other affordable housing
- Address inequalities in health and wellbeing across Edinburgh, as well as,
- Long term structural changes needed to prevent people falling into poverty and hardship.
Alongside these actions, the past year has also seen the successful launch of a new series of knowledge sharing sessions for practitioners across Edinburgh who are working to end poverty in our city. These monthly sessions bring together people from the Council, NHS, third sector, Universities and Colleges, Scottish Government, and other organisations to find solutions to the challenges set by the Commission, share best practice, and join the dots between all the good work happening in Edinburgh.
This Challenge Poverty Week, the network is hosting a session showcasing ways of involving citizens with experience of living in poverty in the design and shaping of anti poverty actions. The session will feature a discussion with the End Poverty Edinburgh citizen’s group sharing the work they have been doing this year to:
- Raise awareness and understanding of the experience of poverty in Scotland’s capital city
- Influence decisions that are made about how the city co-design and deliver services, and
- Hold the city to account for delivering actions to end poverty in Edinburgh.
If you would like to join this, or any other future session of the Edinburgh Poverty Network, or if you have a topic or a service you would like to showcase with Network members, please get in touch with us at policyandinsight@edinburgh.gov.uk, using the subject title ‘End Poverty Edinburgh’.