Photovoice - Cont. Part V

Feed or Bleed
Lynn*, 2006

The choice is clear. If I don’t eat – no one will know. If I don’t buy sanitary supplies – everyone will know. I already use $110 toward extra rent money needed, out of the $210 that I have to live on.

The Right To Food
Mary Jane*, 2006

If you know your Human Rights Code, you can use that, ’cause the Human Rights Code says that the government has to provide an adequate amount of money for food, clothing, and shelter. Go to the line for yourself. Get some support. And if you have to, get a lawyer, ’cause there are lawyers that will take you on. Go to them. It’s hard and sometimes you feel like crap. But you’ve got rights. You’ve got to go for it. Don’t give up. That’s the only way things are going to change.

Fifty Miles Away
Butterfly Russell*, 2006

These are all the things that I can get for nothing at the library—the tapes, the books, the movies. But the bus fare costs me $4.50 and I am living on a budget of $6 a day. It feels like the library might as well be fifty miles away when you don’t have enough money for bus fare to get there. I sit on the Get on the Bus Coalition. We’re trying to make some changes so that people who are on assistance will be able to get a discounted bus pass for $15.

http://www.pwhce.ca/photovoice/saskatoon_intro.html

Photovoice - Cont. Part IV

Suicide Prevention
Lynn*, 2006

I live alone and often suffer from depression and yet I am not allowed enough money to feed and care for my ‘antidepressant.’ If I commit suicide, who will take care of her?

Little Pickles and Punkin
Smith*, 2006

I tried for seven years to change the pet policy so I could have a cat. And they would not allow it. They felt if the mentally ill had cats, they would run around the neighbourhood and end up at the SPCA. You have all these stereotypes. I complained and I tried and tried. A few years later they phoned me up and said that I could have a guinea pig. I would have preferred to have a cat but that’s what I was allowed to have. They’re a lot of fun.

The Empty Shopping Cart
Butterfly Russell*, 2006

To me the empty shopping cart is symbolic. A shopping cart should be full of groceries and have a little kid bouncing up and down in the seat. But for many, every time they look at a grocery cart they feel guilty because they don’t have enough money to fill it up with groceries. And the other thing I think when I look at a grocery cart is, ‘Thank God I’m not the one who’s got all my worldly possessions in it.’ Or I could be wandering up and down back alleys picking up pop bottles. So the shopping cart has a lot of meanings.

http://www.pwhce.ca/photovoice/saskatoon_intro.html

Photovoice - Cont. Part III

“Feeling good about yourself is essential to feeling good about life, but sometimes people are forced to do things that take away from their self-respect.”
Nadia, 2006

One day I saw someone approach this garbage can, take out a discarded bag and eat the garbage inside. I was shocked, and embarrassed for the person. I had never seen anyone eat from a garbage can before. I live in poverty but I have not yet been hungry enough or desperate enough to eat from a garbage can. I thought about how quickly and easily a person’s life circumstances can change to where any one of us could be forced to find our lunch in this way. There are people in the world who, every day, are forced to do such a thing. How good is that for one’s self-respect? 

All I Want for Christmas is to Participate
Lynn*, 2006

I’m not able to buy a present for a niece or nephew and I also don’t get any presents because people don’t want to make me feel bad or obligated to buy something for them.

Bad Weather
Elaine Gamble, 2006

This is a picture of me driving out to my reserve to try to get financial aid because my power and my rent was due. My husband lost his job and we’re having a really hard financial time. I had to take my kids on the highway in this kind of weather because if I didn’t, my power was going to get cut off and I wasn’t going to have a place to live with my children. It was a gamble to go out because I wasn’t guaranteed anything, and, in fact, I didn’t receive anything.

http://www.pwhce.ca/photovoice/saskatoon_intro.html

Photovoice - Continued

http://www.pwhce.ca/photovoice/saskatoon_intro.html

Vacation?!
Genevieve Jones*, 2006

Places like this—McNally Robinson, the public libraries, the Mendel and other art galleries, the University Geology Building—are my usual vacation spots. And closer to home when I'm not feeling well. Out of city, or province, or country are not things I have money for, unless I choose not to eat properly, or make other such sacrifices. 

Closets/Emptiness
Dawn McGraw*, 2006

This is my son’s closet. My kids don’t have a lot of clothes and certainly not expensive clothes. What’s there is all too small for him. It’s just empty, like the hearts of our children sometimes.

The closets have no doors. Too many tenants in the past have damaged the doors, so now tenants are not allowed to have them.

TV and a Phone
Mary Jane*, 2006

If you are on assistance, a phone is a luxury, a TV is a luxury. And if you have cable TV, it is an extreme luxury. Your TV provides you with entertainment. You can’t afford to go out to a movie.

The only way I got a phone was I was in a relationship where I was in danger, so I had to have some way of calling for help.

http://www.pwhce.ca/photovoice/saskatoon_intro.html

Photovoice: Looking Out/Looking In: Women, Poverty and Public Policy

http://www.pwhce.ca/photovoice/saskatoon_intro.html

Being in Poverty Hurts!
Genevieve Jones*, 2006

The pain and stress affect all areas of one’s life. It is often acted out in destructive ways including: inability to trust and build support—friends or community programs, etc.—through addictions, child abuse of all kinds, and/or spouse abuse.

A Photovoice Project
Saskatoon, Saskatchewan
2006

It’s Like You’re Handicapped
Elaine Gamble, 2006

This is a picture of my daughter’s prosthetic limb. It helps her overcome her limitations. When you’re living in poverty it is like you are handicapped because there are so many restrictions, so many limitations.

Someone can go in the store and buy a magazine or a shirt that they need for their kid. They can go ahead and buy it, but you can’t, because you have to think about other things. You have to think, ‘Well, if I buy that, then I can’t pay my phone bill. If I buy that, then I can’t get this for my kid.’ You’re always shortchanging. Sometimes my daughter needs something at school—a book fair or school function. She can’t go or participate because I had to buy Pampers or wipes for the baby instead.

In the words of the women who participated...

Low income women are often subject to scrutiny and surveillance by others. In this project we were behind the lens, not under the lens.

We looked in at our own experiences and out at the world from our own perspectives.

We look out for all the obstacles that come from living in poverty and we look for all the good things that keep us going.

We encourage people in communities to look out for each other, by developing just policies and treating everyone with dignity and respect.

We are looking for change and hoping to make a difference.

Our goal in this project is to use our words and photographs to raise public awareness and influence public policies to reduce poverty and improve the conditions of women’s lives.

Waiting by the Phone
Lynn*, 2006

Surviving below the poverty line means being isolated from loved ones in good times and bad. I do not have any money to put toward long distance calls. I cannot reciprocate; I just get calls when other people feel like calling.

Saskatoon Photovoice Photographers*
Butterfly Russell*                         Mary Jane*
Dawn McGraw*                            Moe S.*
Elaine Gamble                             Nadia
Genevieve Jones*                         Smith
Lynn*                                          Virginia Beebe
*Some of the women have chosen pseudonyms to protect their anonymity.

Saskatoon Photovoice Committee
Vanessa Charles, Saskatoon Antipoverty Coalition
Debbie Frost, National Antipoverty Organization
Kathryn Green, University of Saskatchewan, Department of Community Health & Epidemiology
Lorraine Marquis, Saskatoon Health Region, Social Work Department
Carolyn Rogers, Saskatoon Antipoverty Coalition
Kay Willson, Prairie Women’s Health Centre of Excellence

This project is sponsored by the Saskatoon Antipoverty Coalition & the Prairie Women’s Health Centre of Excellence

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