Poverty In Western Australia – What Needs To Change?

Around the world, inequality and the expanding gap between the ‘haves’ and the ‘have nots’ continues to grow. Right here in Western Australia one in ten West Aussies are now living in poverty, while our State is home to some of Australia’s wealthiest individuals. For many of these people, these families, disadvantage has become entrenched.

As a community, we frequently hear a variety of opinions on what needs to be done to “fix this issue”. How do we make positive change? One group’s opinion though is too often left out of the equation and that is the thoughts, experiences and voices of those being impacted – people actually living in entrenched disadvantage. This is where 100 Families WA comes in.

100 Families WA is an action research project made up of Western Australian community organisations, The University of Western Australia research centres, and people with lived experience of entrenched disadvantage. The UWA researchers have worked alongside 400 families (despite the project’s name) to understand their experiences of entrenched disadvantage, including where the strengths and weakness in our system lie and what could be done to improve the situation.

Join a panel of academic, service delivery and lived experience experts to hear more about the experiences of families living in WA and together, explore a better way forward.

This event is the first of series of talks and panel discussions in the Disrupted Festival of Ideas 2021, hosted by the State Library of Western Australia.