"Peer Relations: My Hill" by Sue

Today's post is a second part to last week's post from Sue, a member of Poverty Talks.

Note: "Hills to die on," besides the common usage of the phrase, is slang that our steering committee members use to describe the working groups they sit on within Poverty Talks! They follow our Core Priorities for 2016, which are Basic Income, Dignified Service Delivery, and Peer Support. Sue explains it perfectly, but the phrase will come up on several posts.

Okay so I started answering the 3 big question I was asked the other day. Why did you join Poverty Talks!?, which I answered in the first blog. Now I will answer: Why is peer relations the hill you chose to die on? And at some point in the future I will answer: Why are issues surrounding food security so important to you?.

Here we go.

PoveryTalks! came up with our 3 most important things to work on. In no specific order they are: Basic Income, Dignified Service and Peer Relations.

I jumped on peer relations without having to give it too much thought. So to answer this question you have to follow me somewhere scary, the inner workings of my mind. See scary.

Digging around I found a couple answers. One is that as humans we desire to leave the world a better place than we found it to be. That’s a good answer but not really a true gauge of the collective work we do on peer relations because it isn’t about just the future, it’s also about the present. So next one that came up seemed to be a little more on the mark but came in the form of another question. If we don’t engage with the communities we are representing how do we know we are representing them to the best of our ability? So peer relation is that bridge between the work and the humanity. And then I found one more that most people would point to as the truth of my reality. I love to talk to people. I really love people, all people from all walks of life, in various shapes and sizes, ability levels, ages, you name it and I will celebrate the differences and similarities. So really I just picked what suits my personality the best.

Ultimately I get to find ways to engage people in conversations around poverty, their experiences and their ideas on how to improve things. Sometimes the stories are very hard to listen to and even harder not to carry with me but that is great part, I get to work on things that could change the outcome of their story one day. I have the honor of being one of the people who not only gets gifted someone’s story but I get to then report back to PovertyTalks! and help put together a plan to drive the Enough for All strategy’s to place that could reach that same person. And that my friends is a hill worth dying on.

Have a Great One!

Sue Gwynn.