The New Nation - Internet Edition

New collection of oral testimonies from Zambia and Pakistan reveal the many faces of poverty International development NGO, Panos London, has published a new online collection of oral testimonies gathered from communities in Zambia and Pakistan, which powerfully convey, in their own words, the reality of poverty and its daily oppressions.

'People need jobs, it doesn't help just to be given mealie meal (maize meal) once in a whilet' Benson, Zambia 'I advise every girl and every woman to stand up on her own feet, work hard and learn a craft. Now I do not depend on ment I have learnt to fight life with courage.' Salma, Pakistan Published ahead of the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty (17 October) - which this year focuses on "people living in poverty as agents of change" - the testimonies reveal people's ingenuity and resourcefulness in meeting their basic needs and pursuing their rights.

Many of the narrators from Zambia, for example, describe how they have diversified their income to help them survive; activities range from charcoal burning, brewing beer and carpentry to bicycle repair. The women interviewed emphasise the value of joining savings clubs and other community groups.

Utrina is in her mid-twenties and lives in Hamusunse village in Zambia's southern province of Choma. She says:

'We do have clubst We try to teach each other how to improve our vegetable gardeningt The Mango club for women: we weave baskets and sell them to raise funds for our memberst People should join clubs, since this year there is hungert they should register themselves so that they can buy seed at a reduced price.'

The testimonies were gathered as part of a wider project that examined the effectiveness of governments' poverty reduction strategies (known as PRSPs), including the extent to which poor people are actively engaged in their development and implementation.

While discussions and documents on PRSPs are often technical and hard to understand for the non-specialist, these spoken accounts come straight from the heart of those coping with poverty every day, and bring the issues that concern them to life.

The testimonies show that poverty has different faces in the two locations - for example, the human and economic cost of HIV and AIDS preoccupies the Zambian narrators. Nevertheless, a number of underlying concerns are common to both communities, such as the frustration of battling against entrenched power structures, and indifference and corruption among those meant to be representing their interests - "Nobody listens to us," says Hodat in Pakistan.

Lack of voice is just one way that poverty reinforces poverty, as these stories vividly illustrate. Fishing families around Manchar Lake in Pakistan, for example - whose livelihoods have been devastated by man-made pollution of the lake - find themselves locked into debt as a means of survival. Local traders buy their catch, often for less than market value; the same traders lend them money at high interest rates.

'[We] live by taking loans. Traders give us loans and their loan is never repaid,' says Allah Bux, a 50-year-old fisherman. 'It increases day by dayt'

Panos London's head of oral testimony, Siobhan Warrington, says, "The value of these testimonies is that they are driven by what the narrators want to talk about. As a result they highlight not only the daily hardships of poverty but tell us what people actually living in poverty think needs to be done. These are the real voices that policy-makers should be listening to."