Introduction
About PACE
Not all Wisconsin communities are created equal. Each community
differs socially, economically, demographically and culturally, as
do the needs of poor and low-income community members. When addressing
this wide range of needs, it is important to recognize that poverty
is more than merely a lack of money. It is an individual, family
or community's lack of goods and resources that are needed to support
well-being and stability. To best serve Wisconsin residents in poverty,
we must personalize our message to reach many different audiences.
Welcome to Poverty Awareness for Community Engagement.
PACE, a research-based, peer-reviewed curriculum, meets the diverse
needs of Wisconsin communities and the programming goals of the educators
who use it.
PACE begins from three premises:
- Poverty is complex,
- Poverty connects and intersects with other issues, and
- Poverty is a call to action.
With that said, PACE offers no silver bullets or prescriptive remedies
for poverty. Instead, it provides essential background and activities
to support poverty education workshops that can be tailored to audiences
around the state. University of Wisconsin-Extension educators collectively
contributed to the design of the curriculum. It is a resource and
tool for these same educators as they provide poverty education throughout
Wisconsin. In this way, the direct audience for PACE is the network
of UW-Extension educators and the indirect audience is the participants
who attend PACE workshops. These participants may be community members,
local leaders and legislators, individuals in poverty and more.
PACE moves workshop participants along a learning continuum to improve
awareness, critical thinking and empathy of poverty issues while
simultaneously providing opportunities to build skills and network
with others. The end goal is to generate momentum for a commitment
to tackle poverty within the personal, workplace and community spheres
of influence. To begin using PACE, educators will need an understanding
of social class, multiculturalism, racism, power and privilege. PACE
educators are suggested to complete the Multicultural Awareness Program
offered through UW-Extension/UW Colleges.
We hope that you will find the curriculum easy to use and relevant
to your work in poverty education, as well as engaging, informative,
and stimulating for workshop participants. Your feedback and successes
will contribute to keeping the material current through periodic
updates and additions.
Core Values
- Each county in Wisconsin has different social, economic, demographic and cultural issues affecting those in poverty.
- Educators will build upon core concepts of poverty using multicultural awareness as an educational foundation.
- PACE promotes active problem-solving to address poverty within personal spheres of influence, within the workplace, and in the community.
The PACE Curriculum Design Team - University of Wisconsin-
Extension, Family Living Programs, Poverty and Food Insecurity Team
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