A few weeks ago, I attended an evening event titled "The Poverty Forum," which was organized through the efforts of the Community Action Council. United Way and several other organizations partnered in this launch of an effort to foster a community conversation about poverty.
The speaker that evening was Donna M. Beegle, Ed.D., who shared observations from her book, See Poverty, Be the Difference. Yet her observations were not created in a classroom setting but rather through real life experiences - her own.
Beegle, who now holds her doctorate in communication as well as several other degrees, lived in and knew poverty. The perspectives she shared that evening were eye opening with life-changing information that shatters common myths and stereotypes about people who live in poverty.
Beegle, her parents and five brothers lived in generational migrant poverty that took the family from place to place to follow the fruit and vegetable harvests. They were often homeless, sleeping in cars and, when lucky, living in run-down rental properties. Beegle is the only member of her family who has not been incarcerated. She left school at age 15 to marry and had two children, continuing to cope with poverty. She found herself at age 25 with no husband, little education and no job skills. What followed in the 10 short years is miraculous and humbling. In an attempt to get Section 8 housing, Beegle succeeded in getting her GED. The journey continued with an associate's degree in journalism, a bachelor's degree (with honors) in communications, a master's degree (with honors) in communications with a minor in gender studies and completion of a doctorate degree in educational leadership.
Now she is a much-sought speaker that shares the reality of the poverty cycle.
The information shared that night provides a foundation for dialogue impacting the following areas:
Awareness and understanding
• Poverty is a real issue in our society, and we have been silent about it for too long.
• The root causes of poverty are structural and embedded in the way we run our organizations and society.
• The differences in life experiences of the various social classes are real and play a critical role in determining their prospects for success.
• The context of poverty teaches people a unique world view with its own strengths and challenges.
• Myths and stereotypes about people living in poverty are prevalent in our society.
• Issues of race, class and poverty are closely intertwined, yet they require careful analysis to separate their effects on people's opportunities for success.
• Poverty in the United States is often internalized as a personal deficiency.
• There are unique personal strengths that exist in the context of poverty.
Learning to better serve people living in poverty
• People living in poverty can - like everybody else - realize big dreams and achieve and strive for excellence.
• The silence about poverty needs to be broken in order to bring visibility to the struggle of those in poverty.
• Improving communication and adapting to different learning styles are enhancing success for people in poverty.
• Effective communication with people living in poverty is a primary vehicle for hearing their voices and understanding their world views as we plan on how to serve them.
• Mentoring plays a major role in reaching out to support people in poverty.
• Effective help is a collaborative effort requiring partnership and support systems - not an individual endeavor.
Social change
• Social practices and structures within our organizations need to be changed if they are to be more responsive and better equipped to serve people in poverty.
• It is crucial to move beyond at best helping people cope with poverty and toward providing genuine opportunities for them to achieve and be valued.
• We must promote social change that includes moving away from blaming and judging to examining and eradicating generational structural and systemic causes of poverty. Societal efforts to help eradicate generational poverty are long overdue.
The dialogue will continue with four upcoming Poverty Forum sessions that are open to the entire community and free of charge. Community Action Council professionals will be utilizing the curriculum of Dr. Donna Beegle. The dates for these sessions are:
• August 19, 2008;
• November 18, 2008;
• February 17, 2009; and
• April 28, 2009.
Information on times and locations will be forthcoming.
Beegle ended her remarks with a special quotation by Fred Rogers that needs to be shared regarding our response to poverty: "As human beings, our job in life is to help people realize how rare and valuable each one of us really is, that each of us has something inside that no one else has - or ever will have - something inside that is unique to all time. It's our job to encourage each other to discover that uniqueness and to provide ways of developing its expression."