Poverty Awareness for Community Engagement (PACE)

This custom-designed professional development training provides key lessons regarding poverty and classism in our culture.  It addresses:

• increasing awareness of different class cultures in the US
• how poverty is defined (includes generational vs. situational poverty)
• how economic class affects behaviors and mindsets
• the challenges faced by those living in poverty
• personal reflections of attitudes regarding poverty

This training is relevant to all professionals who work with people living in generational poverty, including:

• community-based organizations
• social service agencies
• welfare to work programs
• faith-based organizations
• health care systems
• criminal justice system
• educational systems
• law enforcement agencies
• government agencies
• business organizations

The PACE curriculum includes:

• book clubs
• class acts (learning activities and exercises)
• faces of poverty (hunger close to home, making ends meet & poverty quizzes)
• poverty briefs and profiles (fact sheets on issues of poverty)
• videos and DVDs
• Just Neighbors Toolkit
• community change circles
• poverty simulations

To learn more about the PACE training, please contact Cindy Muhar, at 414-290-2420 or by email.

Poverty Simulation

The Poverty Simulation is an educational program sponsored by UWEX that’s been adapted for use in Wisconsin. The simulation experience is designed to help participants begin to understand what it might be like to live in a typical low-income family trying to survive from month to month. The object is to sensitize participants to the realities faced by low-income people.

If you would like to learn about a poverty simulation training for your organization, please check out the UW-Extension Poverty Simulation web page.