Anti-Poverty Week 2008

Anti-Poverty Week in Australia runs from Sunday 12 October to Saturday 18 October this year. The week builds on the United Nations International Anti-Poverty Day which is held on 17 October.

Schools, other organisations and individuals are encouraged to conduct events or activities during the week and to use their networks and links to encourage others to do so.

Schools have traditionally played a large role in promoting the week and organisers are hoping that schools will be active participants again this year.

There are three main ways your school can get involved in anti-poverty week. First you could organise an activity. Second anti-poverty week is an ideal opportunity to bring this issue into the school curriculum. You use the week as a focus to teach children about poverty, its causes and consequences and ways it can be prevented or resolved.

Third, you would use the week to launch a program at your school to ensure that students who are experiencing poverty or hardship are able to fully participate in all aspects of school life. This might include, for example, using an equity checklist to identify areas where those students might be excluded.

There are many resources on the APW website including ads and articles for newsletters. These are at <www.antipovertyweek.org.au>

Events, including ongoing campaigns and activities are able to be recorded at <www.antipovertyweek.org.au/events.php> and schools can get a good idea of activities that have been successful in schools.

There are a number of resources for teachers at the Schools section of the APW website
<www.antipovertyweek.org.au/schools.html>

The Department of Education and Children’s Services in South Australia have a large amount of curriculum material, lesson ideas etc which can be found at <www.decs.sa.gov.au/learninginclusion/pages/AntiPovertyWeek/>   This includes a series of maths curriculum material developed by the Learning Inclusion team.

• Why not organise a display, stall or award?
• Maybe a workshop, class unit of work or project?
• How about a fundraiser?