Today I took part in a #poverty #simulation hosted by the #unitedway. It was quite an amazing experience and very eye opening to the life of someone in poverty. First thing is that in no way does this simulation perfectly demonstrate what life is like in poverty but it allows one to get an idea. My roll while volunteering was as a “quick cash” clerk, my role was to cash cheques, issue overly high interest rate loans, and sell transportation vouchers. Everyone was given a unique family situation from a #singlemom with several kids to a daughter looking after her older parent. These families started in many different situations from having a job, to kids needing to go to school and even some families starting off in the #homelessshelter. At the beginning of the simulation all participants seemed to be very happy and excited to be part of the simulation. This was week one of four, the families had approximately 12-13 minutes to go to work (7minutes), go to school (5 minutes) and then find time to still run all their errands including cashing their cheques. An added difficulty to this was that police were also walking around; when police saw a child wondering around without a parent the police would take the kids into custody. If the dilemma was not noticed parents are working 2 minutes longer than their kids are in school, so the next question is where do the children go? Most kids first went home and stayed there. The police noticed this and took the children into custody for neglect from their parents. Now the parents with only five minutes left of the week had to budget in time to get their kids from the police station. The second week some people were still smiling but most families got into the simulation recognizing how constrained time was and valuable time was. This is where my role as a cash clerk became very popular because families in order to go from place to place needed to buy time. I was the only place that offered time and everyone needed time. I had one older lady came up to me and asked for fifty time vouchers, she then returned one minute later and said she bought too many. My role now was to tell her no, I cannot buy back time. A very realistic situation, in real life if you waste time or invest too much time in the wrong activity you cannot go back and correct your mistake. The third week people got right into being more serious and agitated. This was the week that we at the cash mart increased our rates to 30% to cash your cheque. That means if your pay cheque was $300, I would only give you back $210. A lot of people got frustrated because how can rates climb that high in only one week, this is the reality with unregulated cash marts, and they can set the price at which ever they feel like. In the last week we had three cars come in to exchange for a loan to pay off their debt. The cars were worth $600 and we were giving them only $300 and the loan needed to be paid back in two weeks at an interest rate of 30%. This being the last week of the simulation it did not seem to be an issue because the car was not needed. During the debriefing as everyone discussed how it went. The couple issues that stood out for myself that I never thought about was where should your child go if school lets out, your still at work, and you cannot afford after school daycare or childcare. Everyone says that parents in poverty are neglecting their children, but is it neglect or the cause of poverty? The next issue that made me think was the three cars that had loans taken out on them. These families are desperate and need cash, what happens the fifth week, the sixth week and so on. Can you come up with the cash to pay back the loan, do you now lose your car and only get less than it was worth, now that your car is gone how do you get to work, if you have no internet how do you find out the bus schedules to get to work or take your kids to school? The simulation was not real but it creates the real situations and allows for people that are fortunate to really think about the life they live, how fortunate they are and how can they help people less fortunate. I challenge everyone to sign up and try this simulation; I guarantee you will learn to appreciate the struggles of people in poverty. Throughout this simulation I realized that poverty is not a choice, it is a set of unfortunate circumstance that continue to unfold day in and day out. It is a life that people are born into, children with poor parents do not have the same opportunities as I did, field trips are not frequent, and the pleasure of playing sports would mean that your parents have to work an extra job to cover the costs. The fact that you are giving up transportation, jewelry, furniture and other property just to put a roof over your head and food in your stomach. Your shelter might be paid for this month, but there is nothing to enjoy within your shelter. Thank you the United Way for this opportunity to partake in this program. unitedwaywinnipeg.ca/tag/poverty-simulation/
Posted on: Wed, 26 Nov 2014 04:06:35 +0000
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