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Recently, our Poverty Truth Commission was very kindly invited by LocalMotion Lincoln to their celebration event, marking the end of one phase of their PTC’s work and the beginning of another.  

It was a totally inspirational day and we all came away feeling energised and full of belief in this way of working. Making these connections, person to person, is essential to tackling poverty.  

But enough of me; Sandra, one of Peterborough’s Community Empowerers, has kindly written us a blog post about her day! 

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On Thursday 16th January 2025 a delegation of four from the Peterborough Poverty Truth Commission travelled together by train to attend the Lincoln Against Poverty celebration event: James, Sara, Sadie and Sandra. 

I (Sandra) made it my own personal mission for the day not just to remain with my three colleagues from Peterborough but to meet and chat to as many of our Lincoln counterparts as possible, as I was excited to see which areas they had decided to focus on, in comparison to ours. They had identified four main topics: Welfare Transformation, Accessibility, Awareness and Central Points of Contact. 

– Welfare Transformation was all about people being able to access the help that is rightfully theirs (for example, people on disability benefits). 

– Accessibility encompassed areas such as physical access, digital access and language used (1st or 2nd language, or the use of complex language such as the “manager-speak” and acronym overload that our PTC have encountered). 

– Awareness included educating people that mental health challenges and addiction are illnesses, and tackled the problem that nowadays people can only access help in a crisis, rather than receiving ongoing support and prevention. 

– Central Points of Contact tackled the problem of people having to tell their story over and over again to different agencies and services and called for a ‘one-stop shop’ where information could be shared. 

Our host pointed out that, of course, all of these 4 topics are closely interconnected: if one could be improved, there would be a knock-on effect on the others. 

Our Peterborough team were happy to notice the similarities between these 4 topics and our own areas of focus, for example digital exclusion and making engaging with services easier. 

An inspiring poem was read out by one of the Lincoln Community Empowerers, with the message that “if you change the way you look at things, the things you look at change”. I think that much of the most important work done both in Lincoln and in Peterborough has been to make the decision-makers look at things differently, to recognise that co-production is the way to go where decision-making is concerned, and to see the real people behind the statistics. 

It was great to also hear from Lincoln’s “Young Voices” (up to 25 years old). They called for greater respect between the generations, more education on matters such as tenants’ rights, and discussed the importance of “third spaces” (other than home and school/college) as safe spaces. This made me think that we in Peterborough should perhaps have invited along youth speakers from the Peterborough Youth Council or the local colleges/universities to our Poverty Truth Meetings, to amplify the youth voice. 

After lunch, in the second half of the day, we were given questions to discuss around our tables, which were based on the four topics. So many of these kinds of event do not give sufficient time for discussing topics and writing down ideas, but Lincoln gave us 30 and 40 minutes for their questions, so everyone got a chance to comment and we were really able to delve deep into the subjects. (The tables were rather large so at times the comments had to be repeated, but it was still manageable). One of the questions called for us to “dream big” and make requests for ‘an ideal world’. It felt so fantastic to have that freedom (and request that the Bedroom Tax be abolished!), and it was quite unusual, I thought, for a closing event to have this type of question that you would expect at the beginning of a process rather than at the end. The final task was to request something from the people in the room, which meant that we all went away with a realistic assignment, feeling empowered to make a difference, however small. A lively band rounded off the event so that we left in high spirits. 

I am so glad that we were able to visit the Lincoln Poverty Truth Commission – it was very positive and inspiring, and I hope that our celebration event in February will leave people feeling as excited and empowered as I did after this event. 

– Sandra