Mayor takes lead in tackling child poverty in Dungannon

from The Tyrone Times

IN what will be one of his last official engagements as Mayor of Dungannon and South Tyrone, Cllr Barry Monteith is hoping to make his mark by tackling the area's damning child poverty level through a new network of local organisations.

The recently launched group involving charities such as St Vincent de Paul and the Citizens' Advice Bureau, as well as the council and statutory agencies including the Housing Executive, is the first of its kind throughout the 26 district councils.

And, as the outgoing Mayor explains, the network was set up in response to a shocking report which revealed that the area has the highest level of child poverty in the north.

"Those figures (on child poverty) were produced in September", Cllr Monteith told the Tyrone Times.

"Rather than put them on the shelf and simply have them as mere statistics, we in the council thought we should do something about it.

"I wanted to try and involve the community more in relation to tackling poverty, because, very often, when we think of poverty, we think of countries like Africa, and not necessarily our next door neighbour."

Prices

With spiralling fuel and food costs making it more and more difficult for all sections of society to juggle their finances, such an initiative seems more timely than ever.

By involving statutory and semi-statutory agencies, social and child care organisations, Cllr Monteith hopes the community will take up an open invitation to a special event hosted by the new anti-poverty network on Wednesday.

"We want to try and raise awareness of poverty", he explains.

"It's about showing people that poverty can be beside you and not always on the other side of the world.

"Particularly in the last six months, we have the price of gas and electricity up, petrol and diesel prices up, and the recent announcement that NIE is putting its prices up another 30 per cent.

"Unfortunately, it is the people between the end income brackets that will suffer. People often have this impression that it's only those on benefits who would be affected, but these price rises are impacting on people on incomes as well."