Thriving despite financial hardship in Edinburgh - Report from People Know How

People Know How share the report from this collaborative project which brought together people in Edinburgh who have personal experience of poverty; charities working against poverty in the city and academic partners.

'Uncovering the lived realities of poverty, resilience, and what it means to thrive

Poverty is hard, demoralising, isolating, and traumatising. Society has been trying to eradicate it for centuries, with varying degrees of earnestness. One thing that has stood in the way of effectiveness is an excessive focus on employment and financial independence as an indicator of ‘success’. Recent efforts in the charities sector have underscored the need for a more holistic understanding of what anti-poverty efforts are trying to achieve.

Succinctly, we need to understand what thriving means in the context of financial hardship. We can then think about the barriers to it and enablers of it. This report outlines a research project that set out to explore these themes.

The project was one of the last pieces of work completed by People Know How prior to having to cease operating in December 2024 due to a lack of sustainable funding.'

Click here to read the report