James Paddon writes, “As president of the Ontario Canada SSVP, I’ve placed systemic change at the top of my list for my four year term. There is no doubt what the three most critical issues related to systemic change are.
The first is the change or transformation our membership requires in the way we look at poverty and how we address it. The notion of systemic change can be difficult for many to understand.
This brings us to the second issue. That would be to develop and implement projects that demonstrate systemic change to our members in practical terms.
The final issue is to address what is likely the major cause of generational poverty. This would be the lack of education amongst our friends in need. If we can provide the opportunity for the children of families living in poverty to further their education, we not only enable these children to escape the cycle of poverty, but we also give the parents some real hope for their family to make a better life for themselves.
To this end we have two programs ready to be implemented.They are the Canada Learning Bond program and the Ozanam Education fund program. We’ll be submitting further information on these two programs to Famvin in the near future.
The Society of Saint Vincent de Paul in Canada now has three education modules which we’ll begin to present in the coming months. There would appear to be a real interest amongst our members in learning more about the Society and it’s history as well as how we conduct our various works of charity and socail justice. As we begin the Year of the Young Vincentian here in Ontario Canada, we firmly believe that if we are going to attract younger members, we must use the model set by Frederic Ozanam as an example of what younger members can achieve..
Tags: Canada, Change, poverty, strategies, SVDP, Systemic change
