Marion Matters offers poverty workshop

MARION - Helping to foster an understanding of the issues that people who live in poverty experience and learning how to better communicate with them is the goal of a workshop that Marion Matters, Inc., is offering.

The Bridges Out of Poverty training sessions will be conducted March 10 and 11 at Meta Solutions, located at 100 Executive Drive in Marion. The fee for the workshop is $20 per day.

Heidi J. Jones, executive director of Marion Matters, said part of the training will involve teaching people that poverty is not just an isolated problem, but instead that it has widespread ramifications for all of Marion County.

"We have to really look at poverty as a community issue and not, 'Well, it's not in my neighborhood, so it really doesn't affect me,'" Jones said. "Poverty affects all of us. It affects our community as a whole and all of us whether we realize it or not. To have a better understanding would be great because the goal is to move this community forward and the only way to do that is if we start having conversations across economic class lines. People in poverty are fabulous problem solvers, but nobody understands that because they haven't walked a day in their life."

Jodi Pfarr is a national facilitator for aha!Process, Inc., which designed and developed the Bridges Out of Poverty curriculum. She will be presenting the workshop for Marion Matters.

Since 2001, Pfarr has conducted seminars for a wide range of organizations and individuals that deal directly with the public, including law enforcement officers, judges, fire fighters, teachers, social service workers and religious institutions.

"I’m passionate about creating sustainable communities where everyone’s voice is heard — a place where police are safe, social services are effective, schools are achieving, and businesses are thriving," Pfarr said on her web page at www.ahaprocess.com. "The most inspiring moments during trainings are seeing audience members become conscious of how class has impacted them personally. Helping audiences — whether it’s a rural reservation, an urban police department, or the U.S. Supreme Court judges — begin to see how the class in which they were raised affects their life and workplace is the core of my trainings. True change can take hold when individuals and communities apply this new understanding."

Jones said the Bridges Out of Poverty training is generally supported well by local social service agencies and school districts. However, Jones said she hopes to see more business owners and business leaders from the community attend the training.

"We would love to see businesses at the training, because it really would affect their bottom line in a positive way if they understood the people who worked for them," she said. "I really encourage businesses to come to the training because I think they would learn effective communication. They would build relationships with their employees and they would develop some mediation skills based on meeting somebody where they're at. We never ask anyone to lower their expectations because someone is from a different economic class, but we do ask that they offer different pathways to get there, so that they can use the skills that they have and get to where they need to go."

Marion Matters has offered the Bridges Out of Poverty training 10 times since 2009. Jones said 90 to 100 people have attended the workshops over the past few years.

For information about the Bridges Out of Poverty workshop or to register, contact Marion Matters at 740-223-2999, or by email, cw.marionmatters@gmail.com.

eacarter@gannett.com

740-375-5154

Twitter: @AndrewCarterMS