[UK] Church Highlights Plight of 'Invisible' Poor

from Community Newswire

By Rosamond Hutt, Community Newswire

A Church of England charity has launched a fresh bid to tackle poverty today after a survey revealed the nation's poor were going "unnoticed".

The Church Urban Fund's (CUF) new campaign aims to draw attention to the plight of the 11.4 million Britons living below the poverty line.

Research examining the public's attitudes to poverty revealed there was a widespread belief that it still existed in Britain.

However, almost two thirds (63%) of those polled felt poor people were not visible.

Fran Beckett, chief executive of the CUF, said: "We live in the fifth richest country in the world and yet 20% of people live below the poverty line with 3.4 million of them being children.

"It is staggering that this level of poverty still exists in the 21st century and it is a scandal so many people believe impoverishment is invisible, when it is happening right on our doorstep.

"In this country everyone is aware of poverty overseas because of the stark contrast between lives in the West and the developing world, yet poverty is deep rooted in our communities."

The survey, which was carried out for the CUF by Ipsos MORI last year, showed half of respondents did not know where the official poverty line fell - currently at around £100 per week for a single adult.

Today's launch of the survey represents a milestone in the CUF's history with its first national newspaper advert and first high profile awareness raising campaign.

Since it was founded 20 years ago in response to the 1985 "Faith in the City" report from the Archbishop of Canterbury's Commission on Urban Priority Areas the charity has contributed £55 million to over 4,000 projects helping people in the country's most deprived communities.

The report urged the Church not to retreat from social problems in inner-cities and to tackle the root causes of poverty.

Ms Beckett said: "CUF grants are allocated through the Church of England diocesan areas allowing us to deliver essential support to the places of greatest local need.

"This does not exclude other faiths from applying for grants but it does mean our decisions are informed by local knowledge, so we know that the projects are helping people that need it the most and are tackling the direst problems."

She added: "Our campaign will focus heavily on highlighting the role of existing projects we have helped to fund, as it is important for people to see the human face of poverty behind the statistics."

To find out more about the Challenging Poverty campaign visit www.challengingpoverty.org