Nanaimo poverty advocates connect low-income residents with valuable, but not always visible, resources
NANAIMO — A local non-profit wants to help connect low-income people with support programs by showing them all the valuable resources available in the Harbour City.
Poverty Advocacy Nanaimo (PAN) was founded just over a year ago and helps overcome barriers faced by people in poverty by sharing with them available resources from all levels of government and the non-profit sector.
Executive director and founder of PAN Sarah Pump said her own experience becoming disabled and slipping below the poverty line made her realize a lot of resources to help low-income people aren’t always easy to find.
“Everything is hard to find. When I became too sick to work and became disabled and ended up in poverty with my son as a single mother, I fortunately, had the skills, because I’m a former librarian, to do all of that leg work and do all the research and figure out how to survive. Most people in crisis don’t have that capacity.”