A premiere of four films kicked off Challenge Poverty Week in Aberdeen today calling for social justice.
Several charities joined forces by showing different films at Belmont Cinema on Monday aiming to help break stigmas surrounding poverty.
People with lived poverty experience, councillors, and chief executives of charitable organisations gathered to support the showing.
Held at 9am, four films from Station House Media Unit (Shmu), Aberdeen Council of Voluntary Organisations (ACVO), CFine and AberNecessities were premiered followed by the opportunity to engage in conversation about the issues raised.
Cost of living is going up but benefits are not
Challenge Poverty Week, which runs until October 9, is a chance to highlight the injustice of poverty in Scotland, and to celebrate the people and projects that are standing together to turn the tide against it.
Tanya Gibson was one of the young adults living in the city featured in Shmu’s film talking about their perception and thoughts on poverty.
After getting unexpectedly emotional at the event, she said she hoped it would “at least get people talking about” the issue.
Speaking about how poverty is affecting herself and her family, Ms Gibson said everyone is seeing the effects of the crisis on poverty.
The 23-year-old said: “Even people who need to be on benefits, they’re struggling because the cost of living is going up, but their benefits aren’t.”
With her mum receiving disability benefits and her dad acting as her registered carer, Ms Gibson said they were having to make tough choices.
“It’s becoming even more apparent just now because the heating is becoming a real issue with it going into the winter,” she said.
“I’ve been asking my dad to put on the heating when it’s cold, but he’s like, ‘No, we can’t afford it. There’s nothing we can do about it because it’s so expensive.'”
Young people going to work to help support their struggling family
The Bucksburn resident is taking part in an employability course with Shmu in the hopes of finding a job at the end of it.
She wants to do this to be able to help her family, and said: “It is very worrying and it’s really sad.
“I’m going through this course with Shmu to hopefully help me get a job afterwards. But I can’t do anything at the moment to help my family out.
“And I know there’s a bunch of other young people struggling because either they have to go into work when they really shouldn’t have to at their at age, or they’re like feeling upset because they don’t know how they can help.
“It’s sad to see that people have to do this just to get by.”
‘We need to help people survive the short-term’
Murray Dawson, chief executive at Shmu, said there was a “really good turnout” at the event.
He said: “Hearing about the work of other third sector organisations and the impact that poverty has but also the impact that organisations are having in terms of challenging and tackling poverty and the cost-of-living crisis was certainly something really, really powerful.”
Describing Shmu’s film as “very moving”, he added: “You can read the report and you can see the data… but actually seeing a young person talking about their mum’s decision about whether they can put something on the table or not is just so moving.
“It’s an opportunity to have a focus on poverty. It’s not just this week, or this month, or this winter, it’s a long-term issue.
“But we really have to be focusing now on what can we do to help people today and tomorrow and this week and certainly through the winter.
“We need to change society in the long term, but in the short term, we need to be able to support people to survive.”
To find out more about Challenge Poverty Week, click here.
Conversation