NEBSOC is one of the latest works I was involved with regarding EU funded projects fighting poverty and social exclusion.
For this project we worked both in the Municipality of Patras, Greece and of Bari, Italy. The goal was to identify poverty within the geographic borders of both cities and map it to make it easier for pilot actions to take place targeting the roots of the problem. My work was to lead in both gathering all primary and secondary data and analyze them.
The clear definition of poverty is still pretty vague as some regard a family poor if they are living with less than 60% of the country’s median income, others look only on standards of living and some at other issues like social poverty (staying at home with no friends family), educational poverty (not having received any education) etc.
But with all these definitions and studies comes the defining question, how can we help the fight against poverty not with short-term means but by aiming to minimize it in the long run? My personal experience after working with so much data from different places is that people prefer to be empowered to change their own fate than simply receive charity. They want an equal chance to stand on their own than accept their destiny and count on the mercy of their fellow citizens or state.
This is one of Europe’s biggest problems as it slowly starting to face and analyze it. Many actions against poverty will define the E.U. as a whole since it is proven that extreme political views come from poor areas where people feel that there is no hope.
Will we find a way to help one another and make life easier for the people around us or will we continue to reject all the data provided and act like nothing is wrong?