True Vision

Synopsis

Poor Kids offers 4 children the chance to share their insights on life on the bottom rung of society’s ladder. In turn funny, tragic, moving and fascinating, Courtney (8), Paige (10, Sam (11) and his sister Kayleigh (16) take us into their lives and show us the unvarnished reality of growing up below the poverty line in Britain today. Breathtakingly honest and eloquent they give testament to how having no money affects their lives: lack of food, being bullied and having nowhere to play. The children might be indignant about their situation now, but this may not be enough to help them; their thoughts on the future are sobering.

Sam’s 16 year old sister Kayleigh puts it all into context, we learn how the effects of poverty led her to take extreme measures to try and escape it all.

Poor Kids is a startling insight into what life is like for Britain’s poorest children.

COURTNEY, aged 8 - BRADFORD

We meet 8 year old Courtney as she plays out in a derelict building with her younger sister Chantelle. They run over precarious half broken boards, and have fun throwing rubble into a hole in the floor.

Courtney’s unemployed single mum, doesn’t just struggle to provide things for them to play with, it’s difficult for her to put two meals on the table each day. In the summer holidays the kids often go hungry.

The family have never been on a holiday together, birthdays are almost impossible, as is buying new clothes. Courtney suffers from extensive eczema, which flares up when she is upset and stressed.

Heart breakingly frank, but never self pitying 8 year old Courtney is uncompromising about how she sees her future: 'I'm gonna find it hard, I don’t want to grow up.'

PAIGE, aged 10 - GLASGOW

10 year old Paige is popular and forthright, but she doesn’t like any of her friends to see whereshe lives. For most of her life it’s been in a damp infested flat in one of Glasgow’s tower blocks in the Gorbals. Despite recent regeneration, it’s still an area of drugs,

alcohol and violence.

Black sporescover Paige’s bedroom wall and blinds, and flies buzz around the room. Paige is agitated and indignant about her living conditions, and has been compelled to cut out particularly mouldy sections in her blinds. It’s more than anyone else has done.

Kicking around what’s called a football pitch at the bottom of the tower block , where the ripped up flooring and broken glass has long ago prevented any ball games, Paige considers: ‘The housing association must be bad people to let you live in a place like this’.

We meet her friend Courtney whose whole family are constantly ill due to damp. Visiting her flat it’s not hard to see why. Every wall is covered in mould, and even Paige is shocked.

SAM, age 11, LEICESTER

11 year old Sam wears his sisters hand me down uniform to school, and it doesn’t go unnoticed. Taunted, teased and downright bullied, Sam is never allowed to forget he’s growing up poor. By his own admission he’s been bullied all of his life.

Sam’s single Dad has 3 children to support and with just £420 a month, they often go short. They run out of electricity, can only buy things through a pay-to-view television saving scheme and skip lunches when they’re not at school.

Though isolated from other kids, Sam’s articulate and chatty, but often feels lonely. At quiet moments he reflects ‘I’d like to change everything in my life.. and if I had the chance to I would’.

Sam's 16 year old sister Kayleigh puts it all into context. She tells us that when you’re poor you’re 'marked', and there’s very little chance to escape it, which is what led her to try and take things into her own hands.