poorkids

How does poverty play out in the economic powerhouse of Yorkshire, the retail and tourist success story, the regenerated and rebuilt city, that is Leeds?

Well, here are some figures, collated by the Leeds Initiative and published on their website.

In Leeds there are 29,695 children aged under 16 who are living in poverty – 22.9% of all children in this age range
There are 33,295 dependent children aged under 20 who are living in poverty (22.1% of the children / young people in this age range)

33000 children, 1 in 5 of our children, living in poverty.

Poverty is not distributed evenly across the City, and these averages hide pockets of child poverty that are as high as anywhere in the UK.

On October 14th we are holding an Innovation Lab where the people of Leeds are invited to come and think about how poverty works in the city and what we can do to disrupt it, personally and collectively. We would love for you to join us….http://povertyinleeds.eventbrite.com/

Since I posted my blog on Poor Kids in Leeds I have been asked again and again what can we do about it?

Seems that people aren’t satisfied by the platitudes of writing to councillors and MPs or throwing a fiver at the usual charities – they want to do something.

One of the things that we can do is get a group together, get more informed about what is already being done in the city, and come up with innovative ideas and suggestions for more things that we can do.

So if you can offer a little time to help please leave a comment below.

If you have any specific skills or knowledge that you can offer, or other resources that might be useful, like meeting rooms for example, then please do mention that too.

Everyone can help with this. We are not necessarily looking for specialist knowledge and skills (lets face it ‘the professionals’ have hardly got this one covered), we are just looking for people that give a damn and can offer time and imagination.

So please sign up using the comment form below if you want to have a bash at this. If you would rather not go public with your skills and other offers then just drop me an email.

On October 14th we will be holding an Innovation Lab to explore how we might Disrupt Poverty in Leeds. You can find out more about this event here.

You might also want to have a poke around here for further ideas about what can be done http://www.endchildpoverty.org.uk/what-you-can-do

NB Although I talk about Leeds I am sure that we will have very fuzzy boundaries and anyone from anywhere would be welcome to join us….