Our vision: to end the outrage of child poverty

Achieving our dreams for 2015

For the first time, poor children in developing countries have been given a voice in the fight against poverty.

This report is the result of a two month consultation with more than 4000 children in 18 developing countries around the world. We asked them, their parents and grandparents about the reality of their situation, their hopes for the future and what they would like to say to people in positions of power.

Message from the children

The clearest message from the children was their distress at the damage caused to their lives by the constant struggle by all family members to earn sufficient income to cover basic family needs.
A major recommendation of the report was that:

Children living in extreme poverty should be targeted with direct measures, in addition to sectoral expenditure (health and education), and indirect measures aimed at poverty reduction.

As a result the Grow Up Free From Poverty Coalition is campaigning for social transfers such as pensions, child benefit and disability grants.

The Social Minimum: An Affordable Priority – NOW!

The coalition believes that in order to eradicate the suffering caused by extreme poverty, governments everywhere must take the first steps towards achieving a universal social minimum by prioritizing child benefits, social pensions and disability benefits. We believe that a minimum package of cash transfers will not only dramatically impact on poverty eradication, but also have a multiplier effect by enabling the most vulnerable people in the world to get more out of other services (education, health, safe water and sanitation) as they increasingly become available. Such a package is therefore an essential precondition for the achievement of the Millennium Development Goals (MDGs).

The Grow Up Free From Poverty Coalition is made up of 26 NGOs and faith groups.