Closer Than You Think

SACOSS is South Australia’s non-government peak representative body for community services organisations, and on 18 March 2005 launched a broad-based Anti-Poverty Campaign, Closer Than You Think. The campaign is raising awareness and changing perceptions of poverty and hardship in South Australia. Poverty and social exclusion are poorly understood in Australia, and compared to the early 1970s poverty in this country is now more widespread and inequality is greater.

The United Nations regards poverty as a violation of human rights—and yet almost a quarter of all South Australians are living on or below the poverty line. The Closer Than You Think campaign will engage, inform and galvanise key members of the community, education, employment and political arenas; social welfare experts from around Australia; and members of the community who are themselves affected by poverty.

Closer Than You Think has developed a simple Blueprint to eliminate poverty in South Australia, entitled Extending Opportunity to All, that lists a set of targets aligned to South Australia’s Strategic Plan. The draft blueprint was presented at the campaign Conference on 28 & 29 July 2005, and input from conference delegates over those two days was incorporated into the final Blueprint released by SACOSS on 29 September 2005.

The Blueprint will be supplemented over the years by work-in-progress companion documents outlining strategies to achieve the targets listed in the Blueprint.

>> Download the Blueprint and its companion documents.
>> Learn how you can contribute to the future development of South Australia’s Strategic Plan

Click on “Conference” to the left to read more detail on the conference program, and to read and hear speakers’ presentations.

The campaign is focusing on five themes:

Income
Employment, Education and Training
Health and Wellbeing
Housing
Social Participation

Fact sheets on each theme are available to download, by following the link for each of these themes. Or click here to download all of them as one document.

We invite you to be involved – this campaign represents a unique opportunity for you to express your engagement with the issues affecting a quarter of all South Australians today, and to contribute to concerted, positive change.

For more information

Celia Brissenden, Communications Officer, SACOSS tel. 8305 4227

or

Karen Grogan, Executive Director, SACOSS tel. 8305 4223

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