"My Week On Welfare" - Jackie Torrens

A social media campaign to tackle welfare stigma is about to launch. Actor, writer and documentary maker Jackie Torrens, who initiated the project and herself was on welfare as a young mother, shows what it will look like. Photo contributed.

Poverty has long been a concern for me as a person and as an artist. I wouldn't consider myself poor relatively speaking but I know what it is like to go hungry because I haven't had enough or any food, and being faced with the choice of going hungry or swallowing my false pride and getting my butt to the food bank, and being on welfare.

If you have every found yourself in a position with your back is up against the wall and you have to ask for help and need to apply for social assistance, you will know and understand, what a dis-empowering and demoralizing experience it is. This is just the tip of the downward spiral of poverty. Poverty is like living in another country, and if you haven't lived there, it is difficult to fully understand the experience if you have never been.

Last night I watched a very poignant documentary, "My Week On Welfare" that addresses the harsh realities facing those individuals living on welfare/social assistance,( the nice word) in Nova Scotia. Actor, writer and documentary film maker Jackie Torrens directed this excellent film and in collaboration with other poverty activists, has started a social media campaign to fight the stigma of being on welfare. 

Please join the fight against poverty if you care, and want to advocate for change, take action. It's this artist's antidote to worry!