Membership Spotlight highlights the work of our member organisations and outlines how other individuals and organisations can support them. Together is shining a light on one of our newest member The Poverty Alliance on the lead up to Challenge Poverty Week.
For more than 30 years the Poverty Alliance has campaigned for the changes needed to bring about an end to poverty. As Scotland’s anti-poverty network, our strength comes from more than 400 organisational members who share a commitment to justice, compassion and lasting change.
Working alongside our members, we influence policy and practice, support communities to challenge poverty, share evidence through research, and build public support for solutions that can make a real difference to people’s lives.
Our work is rooted in systems change: tackling the structures and systems that allow poverty to persist, while keeping the knowledge and experiences of people directly affected by poverty at the heart of our priorities, campaigns and policy work.
Poverty Alliance’s Work on Children’s Rights
This year, the Poverty Alliance became a member of Together. We are pleased to strengthen our relationship as we work collaboratively to advance children’s rights in Scotland.
Together has been central to efforts to incorporate the United Nations Convention on the Rights of the Child (UNCRC) into Scots law and continues to support organisations as that legislation is put into practice. Its peer spaces give us a valuable opportunity to share learning, explore what implementation means in practice, and bring those insights into our Rights in Action project, as well as our wider work on child poverty.
Tackling child poverty has long been a core part of Poverty Alliance’s work. We played a pivotal role in the campaign to introduce the Scottish Child Payment in 2021. Since its introduction, the Scottish Child Payment has become one of Scotland’s most effective anti-poverty measures, helping protect around 40,000 children from poverty each year.
Through Scotland Demands Better we mobilised over 250 organisations and 5000 people to come out into the streets to call for changes that would make meaningful difference to the lives of children and families, like uplifting the Scottish Child Payment to £40 a week to lift ore children out of poverty and scrapping the unjust two-child limit.
We are also an active member of the End Child Poverty Coalition, and are committed to working with, and challenging the Scottish Government on their defining priority of eradicating child poverty.
Each year, The Poverty Alliance coordinates Challenge Poverty Week to highlight the injustice of poverty in Scotland and to show that collective action based on justice and compassion can create solutions. Challenge Poverty Week, which takes place this year from Monday 5th – Sunday 11th of October, is an opportunity for organisations and people across Scotland to raise their voice against poverty and unite with others in calling for a just and equal Scotland. Hundreds of organisations and individuals in Scotland do just that, including elected representatives, charities and NGOs, local authorities, faith groups, businesses, schools and colleges, trade unions, professional bodies and more.
This year, one of our Challenge Poverty Week themes is child poverty. Financial insecurity shapes every aspect of a child’s life and future, yet children’s voices are too often missing from the discussions on the policies and decisions that affect their lives. This Challenge Poverty Week, the focus is on the need to listen to young people and support them to speak up for change.
Since 2025, Poverty Alliance’s Get Heard programme has focussed closely on tackling child poverty. Get Heard is an anti-poverty policy participation programme funded by the Scottish Government’s Tackling Child Poverty unit. The programme brings together people who live on a low income, to share their views and contribute their lived experience to policymaking. From May 2025 onwards, we have brought together parents with direct experience of living on a low income to feed their insights and expertise on child poverty into the development of Scottish Government’s latest Tackling Child Poverty Delivery Plan.
In our wider work, we work directly with children’s charities, like Barnardos to facilitate direct engagement around poverty, and we continue to work with our member organisations to amplify youth voice.
Through our Rights in Action project, we run capacity building workshops and programmes building awareness of economic, social and cultural rights among our membership base of third sector and community organisations and activists, including those in the UNCRC.
Getting involved in Poverty Alliance’s Work
The best way to get involved in Poverty Alliance’s work is by becoming a member. Our membership is open to any organisation that shares our vision of a Scotland free from poverty with social, economic and environmental justice for all.
We work with members to build a strong anti-poverty movement by connecting organisations across Scotland, creating spaces for learning and peer support, and ensuring members’ insight, expertise and experience shape our policy, campaigning and influencing work. Together, we use our collective voice to call for the changes needed to create a more just and compassionate Scotland.
You can find out more about Poverty Alliance membership here.
Ends
Find out more information about signing up as a Together member here and join the community.
Consultancy and Training!
Together provides training and consultancy to organisations looking to strengthen how they support children’s human rights.
Webinars!
Sign up to our three free webinars series, designed to support those working with and for children to embed children’s rights in their practice.
Donate To Us Today!
Donate to Together and help us to promote children’s rights in Scotland and improve the lives of all babies, children and young people.