Vancouver: Poverty Olympics to highlight broken promises

North America | Vancouver Olympics 2010 | Casualisation / Workplace

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from mostly water, 31 January 2008:

NEWS RELEASE
For immediate release: Jan. 29, 2008

Poverty Olympics To Highlight Broken Promises

What do Itchy the Bedbug, Creepy the Cockroach and Chewy the Rat have in common with the 2010 Olympics? They are the mascots of the first annual Poverty Olympics to be held on Feb. 3, 2008, just in time for the two-year countdown to the 2010 Winter Games. The event will take place at the Carnegie Theatre, 401 Main St. in Vancouver, from 1-4 pm.

The fun-filled afternoon will feature a torch relay, opening ceremony, and Poverty Olympics "events" such as the Welfare Hurdles, Poverty Line High Jump, and Long Jump over a Bedbug-Infested Mattress. The highlight of the opening ceremony will be the lighting of the 15-foot high End Poverty Torch.

"While it's going to be fun, we do have a serious message," said organizer Wendy Pedersen of Carnegie Community Action Project. "We want the world to know that Vancouver and BC have world-class poverty and homelessness. We hope international reaction to the poverty situation in Vancouver will spur our governments to use their massive surpluses to end poverty and homelessness." BC had a $4 billion surplus last year, yet still has the highest rate of child poverty in Canada, at 21 per cent.

The Organizing Committee for the first annual Poverty Olympics has written to the International Olympic Committee to request funding for future Poverty Olympics and to urge the IOC to press the city, province and federal government to implement commitments to improve social assistance and build housing.

The four partners of the 2010 Winter Games (Vancouver, VANOC, BC, and Canada) have failed to implement unanimous recommendations made by their own Inner City Inclusive Housing Table to increase welfare rates 50%, end barriers to getting on welfare that are making people homeless, and build 3200 units of housing between 2007 and 2010. Unless strong action is taken immediately, there could be more homeless on Vancouver streets than athletes competing in the 2010 Games.

Groups involved in organizing the Poverty Olympics include Raise the Rates, Carnegie Community Action Project, Streams of Justice, BC Persons With AIDs Society, Vancouver Area Network of Drug Users, and the Downtown Eastside Neighbourhood House.

The Poverty Olympics Organizing Committee plans to inform international media of the event and the poverty and homelessness situation in Vancouver.

See http://povertyolympics.ca

[original article from Mostly Water]

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