Poverty: Understanding Through Experience

The Poverty Simulation called Poverty: Understanding Through Experience is a signature program of the Alliance for Regional Solutions. This program is designed to provide participants with an experience in which they better understand what it means to be living in a low income family, struggling to survive from month-to-month. The objective is to sensitize participants to the realities of life faced by individuals living in poverty.

The Poverty Simulation Experience is an eye-opening event for those who attend; individuals experience, first-hand, the realities of living in extreme hardship. Simulations model real-life situations of persons who are in positions of influence and how they impact community members experiencing poverty such as public aid workers; educators; social service workers; attorneys, etc.

Here are some of the comments from our last event:

"It was eye-opening to walk in the shoes of my clients for one day and taught me to be more empathetic to their individual situations.”

"This workshop should be mandatory for anyone working in human services."

"I honestly can't say enough about how impactful this event was. I went through so many waves of emotion in just a couple hours: stress, triumph, anxiety, compassion, and more. I walked away feeling like I understand just a little bit more what our clients go through on a day to day to basis."

"This event is an impactful way to build empathy through experience."