Several who have lived homeless spoke Tuesday morning at the kickoff of the Poverty and Homelessness Action Week co-ordinated by the Yukon Anti-Poverty Coalition.

“Part of what we are trying to do this week is highlight people and their stories,” Kristina Craig, the executive director of the coalition, told a small gathering at a press conference outside the coalition’s office on Hanson Street.

“We feel very strongly at the coalition we are only as healthy as a community as the people who are really living here.

“All of our stories are different and sometimes we don’t always hear everyone’s.”

The week of activities through to next Tuesday include a variety of events such as the stew and bannock luncheon hosted today by the Skookum Jim’s Friendship Centre.

Tomorrow on the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty four different events are scheduled, including a talk organized by the social justice club of the Porter Creek Secondary School. The talk will be presented by those who have or are living the experience of poverty and homelessness.

The theme of this action week is Walk the Empathy Walk.

The week will end next Wednesday on World Food Day with another lunch put on by Skookum Jim’s along with a handful of other events.

Kerry Nolan is the co-ordinator and a graduate of the coalition’s Voices Influencing Change program.

She told the audience the program provides a safe avenue for people to share their stories when they feel they are ready.

It’s a means of helping to effect change in the community, Nolan said.

“We tell our stories of our lived/living experience as a way to help others see and understand where we have been and the experiences we have been through,” she said.

“We are not looking for pity or sympathy for telling our story, but to help you see that traumatic and painful events shape our story and have a great impact on who we are today, and everybody has a story.

“I would not be where I am today, if it was not for where I was yesterday.”

Nolan said when someone takes the time to listen to the story of others without judgment, they give that person a chance to begin healing.

Ulriki Levins is an August 2018 graduate of the Voices program, having lived in poverty and homelessness last year.

“I know from personal experience how difficult it is to not have a stable home, and what a change it has made in my life to have that gone,” she said. “I am still experiencing poverty but working to get out of that as well.”

Levins said she wanted to be part of the Voices program to help effect change.

She continues to participate in meetings with territorial ministers, those who administer social assistance, and with representatives of the Yukon Housing Corp.

It’s important, Levins said, that those people hear the input from people who have lived the experience of homelessness and poverty.

“People don’t know that in a moment they too can be on the other side,” she told the small gathering.

Jason Charlie echoed Levins’ observations.

It is indeed important others hear from people who have experienced poverty and homelessness, said the graduate of Voices Influencing Change.

“It gives them an understanding of where they came from and what they have been through,” Charlie said. “Those things are happening right now.

“There is a really big hole in our community and that is something we really need to heal.”

Nolan told the audience when people take the time to listen to the plight of others without judgment, they give the less fortunate a chance to begin healing.

And when a community starts to heal, it will begin to see the end of poverty and homelessness, she said.

“It takes a healthy community to end poverty and homelessness,” Nolan said. “So let us start today by Walking the Empathy Walk, and begin to heal our beautiful community.”