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BRIDGES OUT OF POVERTY

Confronting poverty in your community

Events like Bridges Out of Poverty training or Poverty Simulations will be shared on the Events webpage when they are scheduled.

Poverty comes in many forms and is defined as the extent to which an individual does without resources whether financial, spiritual, mental/educational, physical, support system, relational/role models, emotional, or knowledge of hidden rules.

The Missions and Community Engagement office of the East Ohio Conference of The UMC is engaged in this work

The Connectional Ministry office has a poverty simulation kit that can be used to create an experience that puts participants into other people’s shoes an experience a month in the life of a person or family living in insecurity. The experience is for three hours with debriefing and opportunities for next steps. If you are interested in hosting a poverty simulation, please review the form below and send in a request.

Poverty Simulation Information and Interest Form.

The Bridges Out of Poverty model discusses the need for individual, communal, and societal investigation to discover changes that need to be made to overcome poverty. Bridges work is a part of the Aha!Process.

In a Bridges six-month virtual cohort you will take a deep dive chapter by chapter into this work of learning mental models of poverty, middle class and wealth, tyranny of the moment, theories of change, generational poverty, and organizing for power. Past cohorts have spent time with the authors of Bridges curriculum, bonded with people from different disciplines, and discovered passions for this work in their communities and workplaces. In a Bridges six-hour day training a presenter will dive into these same concepts to understand the Bridge’s philosophy. Other trainings on other topics can be found on the Aha!Process website.

After a Bridges training a participant has completed the first step to become a R Rules or Getting Ahead facilitator. Further training is needed for both.

• R Rules is a curriculum designed for middle to high school students to create a future story and build resources to achieve their dreams and thrive in the world. Learn more about R Rules.
• Learn more about Getting Ahead.
  • Thrive 10:10, a ministry of Gerard UMC, has taken the next step in this ministry to offer Getting Ahead in their community. Partnerships have been formed with the courts, universities, and ecumenical partners to reach people in need of this ministry.
  • Getting Ahead Testimonials:
    • "Trust the process."- Facilitator
    • "From learning what I did in the program, I have my parents back in my life after eight months." - Investigator
    • "We learned about so many resources that we didn’t know we have, but we have them in us." - Investigator
    • "I think what this class taught me was how to listen … I was the first one to go off on 'I think this and I think that …' I had to listen, and listening helped me learn so much." - Investigator
    • "You guys are like family." - Investigator
    • "I am starting to see a little confidence in her now that she didn't have before." - Getting Ahead Facilitator about an Investigator
    • "You know who I can't get out of my mind? The children and grandchildren of these women who will live differently because their mom went to Getting Ahead. I remember when someone showed me that I could set goals to be in a better place in the future. The chance to do that for someone else is amazing." - Leader in program