Description |
xiii, 178 pages : illustrations ; 22 cm |
Contents |
Includes index |
Summary |
Have you ever had to fast for two days so that your children could eat? Poverty is a statistic ... So many thousands of himan beings are living below the povert line ... And the poverty line is drawn by experts sitting in committee. Experts taking evidence about prices in the supermarket, the cost of clothes, rent, how little a person can live on if that person always lives as economically as possible, never having a treat, never giving the children a treat, never buying a present for a friend. There have been many books writted about poverty: what it is, how it may be solved whether it can be solved. But how many poor people have told the world what it is like to live in poverty? This is their book - with the help of the tape recorder everyone, including the illiterate, can communicate with the world. Graeme Brewer of the Brotherhood of St. Laurence, an organisation that had pioneered many advances in social welfare, has collected the stories of 21 people who live below the poverty line. And so we learn what it is like to have to deny one's child an ice cream, how to fast for two days so that the children can eat, what it is like to be a job applicant who can't write or spell. Contrary to populare belief these people are not dole bludgers, neither do they whinge! Most often they seem in the tradition of the battler, cheerful, making the best of a hard life, hopeful often of turning the corner and worrying always about their children, wanting them to have the chances their parents missed, to climbe over the poverty line. On the Bread Line tells of the poor as they see themselves, not as others interpret them. They move us to compassion, and to admiration for their courgae and endurance. May the be the last Australians to live in poverty! (Back cover) |
Analysis |
Poverty - Case studies |
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Poverty. Social aspects. Transcripts of interviews |
Notes |
Original Cataloguing-in-Publication title was On the scratch line |
Bibliography |
Includes bibliographic references and index |
Event |
1980 |
Subject |
Poor -- Australia -- Biography.
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Poor -- Australia -- Attitudes.
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Poor -- Australia -- Case studies.
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Poor -- Australia -- Social conditions.
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Poor -- Australia.
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Poverty -- Case studies.
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Poverty -- Australia.
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Poverty.
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SUBJECT |
Australia -- Economic conditions http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh85009585 -- 1965-
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Australia -- Social conditions. http://id.loc.gov/authorities/subjects/sh2008114311
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Genre/Form |
Biographies.
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Author |
Brewer, Graeme.
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Brotherhood of St. Laurence.
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ISBN |
0908090307 |
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