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focus: Living Wages, Washington DC |
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05 Feb 06 |
Fourteen years ago, I came to Washington, DC to work with homeless men and women and their families as they struggled to overcome the deep rooted problems of poverty. I learned much from people who came with prison records, HIV infection, substance abuse problems, mental illnesses, physical and psychological abuse. As I heard their stories, I saw that almost all of them wanted help to improve their lives. But, how? They were not only homeless, they were also unemployed, or under employed; they were school drop-outs at an early age; they had children to raise with very few resources; and, for many, the only resource for them was the government. Often their parents and their grandparents had been on welfare and that was the whole of their financial experience.
The welfare system had helped them survive, but at a steep price. They were unable to leave it because there was no opportunity for someone who did not have a high school diploma or job training. Even if they could get jobs, they could not raise their families in dignity on the wages they would receive. Often they felt powerless to accomplish any personal goals.
As I reflected on the causes of such feelings of powerless I remembered the video I had seen called Women of the Flats, about the RSCJ’s work with women living bleak lives in a housing project in Ireland. The women met regularly to support each other and to gain dignity, a stronger sense of self, and especially a feeling of greater power and control of their lives. Although they did not meet specifically for “education,” in the larger sense everything was education—holistic, transformational education. By coming together regularly in a non-threatening environment, and by learning from each other as well as from those who visited the center, the women gained confidence and a sense of greater control over their lives. Knowing of this work in Ireland has been a great inspiration for me in my work at Living Wages. Other influences were the Society’s documents in the 70 that I could not forget especially the statement about “To seek solidarity with the poor, with those who live on the margin of society, and to work together for our mutual liberation which is growth in faith and love. “
Inspired by what I had learned, I joined several colleagues who had also worked with the homeless to start Living Wages in 1998. We believed the words from the U.N.’s Hamburg Declaration on Adult Literacy that “Illiterate people everywhere are the poor, the marginal, the excluded. Their deepest shame is not their inability to read and write but that they have no hope for their future in the society into which they were born.” This is as true in Southeast Washington, DC’s impoverished neighborhoods where I work as in any developing country.
The Hamburg Declaration goes on to say: “The informed and effective participation of men and women in every sphere of life is needed if humanity is to survive and to meet the challenges of the future. “
To address the sense of powerlessness I experienced among the homeless, we decided to offer adult education opportunities to those who had had few chances to experience education as empowerment. Starting in pre-school, residents of poor communities are usually deprived of a quality education, resulting in a high school drop-out rate of more than 50% and lifetimes of poverty for the majority of adults.
Poverty in Southeast DC has many broad causes, but one thing is clear: inadequate wages, on which full time workers cannot support their families, is certainly a fundamental cause. The US Catholic Conference has consistently stated that “the most urgent priority for domestic economic policy is to create jobs with adequate pay and decent working conditions.”
In our society, workers with poor education or job skills cannot command a living wage, so my effort is to help adults improve both as a means to a better job and a better wage.
The other side of adult education involves the children of the adults. Educating the parents has a multiplier effect. It is a way of breaking the multi-generational aspect of poverty. Adults who participate in adult education are strong role models for their children.
Our mission is to enable adult learners to compete more successfully in the job market, to become life-long learners, and to exercise their rights and responsibilities as citizens.
Through education, the adult learners gain:
access to information and resources so they can orient themselves in the world;
voice to give their ideas and opinions with the confidence that they will be heard and taken into account;
action to solve problems and make decisions on their own, acting independently as parent, citizens and workers for the good of their families, their communities, and their nation; and, a
bridge to the future to keep up with the rapidly changing world.
Adult education has the power to transform the individual and his or her society.
Education is the fundamental method of social progress, and society has a duty to provide educational opportunities to all of its members. In a democracy, every citizen expects to give and to receive. Likewise, every citizen has something to teach and something to learn. This is as true in Southeast DC as it is elsewhere.
Please check out our website at livingwages.org
Betsy Hartson rscj
Province of the United States
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Last Updated ( 03 Feb 06 )
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