Last month I threw a question into the Twitter sphere asking for recommendations on books about poverty. I was overwhelmed by the many responses I received! Clearly there is great interest in and demand for stories and writing that provide a better understanding of what it’s like to live on little. Twitter friends, another request! Your recommendations on #books about #poverty nonfiction, memoir, academic, fiction what should I read? (Don't be shy to recommend your own work! )#BookRecommendation #MustRead #RecommendationsNeeded pic.twitter.com/jZ7UyVMh1b — Keetie Roelen (@KeetieRoelen ..read more

by Keetie Roelen 2022 started with hope. It looked like the pandemic was finally easing off, and we were all too ready to climb out of the hole that had opened up two years earlier. Vaccinations were taking effect, children were back in school, and travel was picking up again. Life was resuming some form of normality – old, new, or otherwise. But let’s not forget the scars the pandemic left. Millions of people lost their lives. Many more lost their jobs or saw their incomes fall. By 2021, extreme poverty increased by 115 million people. Children across the world were unable to go to school, le ..read more

by Keetie Roelen Last week I had the pleasure and privilege to attend the conference ‘Disrupting Poverty’ organised by EMPath, a non-profit that has a long history of working with marginalised groups and people in poverty in Boston. The first two days were focused on their mobility mentoring programme, which we explored in our podcast earlier this year. The second half of the conference was dedicated to discussing how to the poverty cycle, from innovating workforce development, implementing guaranteed basic income to shifting poverty narratives. Most of the conference speakers and attendees we ..read more

by Keetie Roelen After almost two years of grappling with the Covid-19 pandemic and all the misery it caused, the world was looking a lot brighter as we moved into 2022. Eight months on, very little optimism remains. War in Ukraine,  energy crisis, supply chains and service industries desperately trying to catch up with increased demand after the pandemic – it all plays into rapidly rising prices that hit people in the pocket, hard. While we may often be most familiar with what’s happening in our countries, the cost of living crisis is wreaking havoc across the globe. So what’s happening ..read more

by Keetie Roelen It’s a warm summer’s evening in June 2021 when my phone pings to tell me I received a new email. “Hey, I just read that El Salvador will be the first country to make Bitcoin legal tender. This is so exciting!” A friend and I had recently spoken about issues of poverty and what might be needed to address it, and he had written to share his enthusiasm for what was about to happen in the smallest country in Central America. “It will be such an amazing opportunity for people who don’t have bank accounts or have little income. This allows them to invest and earn more money. Cryptoc ..read more

by Keetie Roelen Picture this: You’re a mother of a new-born. It’s only been a few weeks since you gave birth but already you’re out and about, looking for work to make ends meet. The father of your child doesn’t want to be involved in their life, and you have no close family around to help out. You’re at it alone. There’s a glimmer of hope though. The government has a scheme providing economic support to parents on low income. All you have to do is go to the welfare office and show them you meet the criteria. Easy, right? If only it were that simple. Factual information proves insufficient to ..read more

by Keetie Roelen “I crossed the bridge to economic independence” says Haroun about his experience with mobility mentoring. “I’m now managing my own small enterprise. I continue to grow. No mountain is too high.” Getting a grip Haroun is in his twenties and lives in Zaandam, a medium-sized town in the Netherlands. He found himself trapped in a cycle of debt at an early age. But his participation in the programme ‘Get a Grip’ marked a turning point. Talking about his experience, he describes how his two mentors helped him to get hold of his financial problems, pay off outstanding debt and get an ..read more

2021 is almost behind us. It’s been a hectic year for Poverty Unpacked. We published 12 podcast episodes and almost as many blog posts. We heard from writers, researchers, activists, and those at the sharp end of living on little. India, South Africa, and the UK were but a few of the countries featured in the many conversations and insights shared on this platform. So what have we learned? And what are we taking into 2022? First, people experiencing hardship and marginalisation work their socks off to get by and move up and out, every single day. Whether it’s slum dwellers in India, Nigerian i ..read more

by Ritu Mahendru The traumatic events that transpired in recent months have once again placed Afghanistan at the centre of the world’s attention. A humanitarian disaster is now unfolding in plain sight. Since the Taliban takeover three months ago, teenage girls have been banned from going to schools, the Ministry of Women Affairs has been permanently shut, the majority of women are confined to their homes with a worry they could face violence if caught without a mahram (a male guardian). People have lost jobs, the economy is collapsing, those who have jobs have not been paid for months, and th ..read more

With world leaders, civil society and campaigners congregating in Glasgow this week for the global climate conference COP26, climate justice is high on the agenda. Activists are calling on negotiators to move beyond ‘blah blah blah’ and for politicians to take action that will make a real difference to halting climate change. Climate justice isn’t just about tackling the climate crisis for everyone. It is also about social justice, and recognising that the poorest in the world are worst affected by the planet warming up despite contributing least to it. For this month’s post, we asked three at ..read more