Poverty Watch

Following the query raised by 'A Christian Outlook' (The Sunday Times, August 13), I wish to give a brief outline of the ongoing project 'Poverty Watch' which Caritas Malta, with the help of Discern, set up in1994.

The aim of Poverty Watch was to monitor the phenomenon of poverty in the affluent Malta of the last decade of the 20th century. During the same year, 80 parish priests of Malta and Gozo were interviewed in an effort to document their perception of, and orientation to, people in difficulty in their communities.

A first report was issued seeking to identify and describe perceptions of poverty. After that, it was agreed that other points of access to the phenomenon could be explored. Poverty Watch accepted the challenge and revisited poverty by interviewing people who occupied leadership positions in agencies engaged in helping the poor.

The goal of the exercise was to approach the same poor and their plight from a different perspective and, hopefully, to gather new information which could integrate or confirm the conclusions of the first report.

Im mid-1995, 65 agencies in Malta and Gozo, all fully dedicated to helping people who were disadvantaged or who encountered difficulties in coping with life, were involved by the Poverty Watch team in the investigation. The picture of poverty that emerged from the inquiry confirmed the findings of the 1994 investigation.

It integrated the perception of poverty of the parish priests. The information, published in a second report in 1996, directly reflected the experience of the leadership of the agencies in serving the poor and, indirectly, that of their membership.

The poor, however, rather than poverty, remained the primary concern of Caritas and Discern. The third report, published in 1998, presented the results of a third project that paved the way for an ongoing encounter with the poor.

The relative invisibility of today's poor suggested that the poor could only be met by knocking at their door, thus making the passage from perceptions to experiences of poverty; 651 doors were knocked and 307 situations of poverty were located. Three out of five of the people visited could be considered as "people in difficulty".

These 651 households in seven parish areas in Malta were a specimen of poverty as real people experienced it. The practical aim of the project was to pilot the instruments that would make possible a programme of ongoing, nation-wide, door-to-door and face-to-face encounter with the poor in Malta.

A fourth report was in the offingbut, regrettably, never reached the publishing stage due to the sudden demise of Fr Benjamin Tonna.

The Caritas Diaconia Unit, in collaboration with the Diaconia Parish Commissions, is currently conducting social and community studies to identify the real needs of people in difficulty at parish level.

Mr McKay is head of the Diaconia Unit, Caritas Malta.