UCAN, United Community Action Network’s Health Charter has received endorsement from the Child Poverty Action Group (CPAG).

CPAG, an independent charity established in 1994, has maintained a robust focus on the elimination of poverty for the children of Aotearoa. Doctors, teachers, academics, healthcare workers and many other committed people contribute to the body of research and reportage that CPAG produces.

Approximately three hundred thousand children live in poverty in Aotearoa. If you add to this the older siblings, parents, extended family and whanau, the burden of poverty escalates. The long term impacts of poverty are widely documented: the tragic loss of potential of the children; increased difficulty in accessing affordable physical and mental healthcare; the increase in incidence of domestic violence; poorer educational outcomes; limited access to decent accommodation; and the tailspin of homelessness. This is an avoidable situation. There needs to be a willingness to engage, innovate, and reduce the impacts of these situations for the benefit of all.

CPAG states “child poverty could be eliminated completely. It’s all about Choice.” UCAN agrees, and this unfolding disaster is a failure of political policy and loss of values based politics.

UCAN spokesperson, Debbie Leyland, says, “These conditions need to be considered as the escalating crisis that it is. It’s brilliant, but also a tragedy, that organisations like CPAG are active and necessary. They are essential in these times to document and report the struggles of the most vulnerable among us. There is something seriously broken in New Zealand.”

ENDS

Source: http://wp.me/p7TDut-3v

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