What is a Poverty Pole?

A Poverty Pole is visible sign of your personal commitment to a more just Australia. Create your own, or come together with friends, relatives, classmates or church group and create a group one.

A Poverty Pole can be large or small, colourful, painted, with decorations, or just plain. Sign it, write comments on it, use your imagination and create a Poverty Pole that represents your understanding of Indigenous poverty.

You can display it to show that you have made a commitment to stand up and Make Indigenous Poverty History.

Send us your photos and stories about how you created your Poverty Pole and how it has helped educate and raise awareness where you live and we will put it on our web site.

We made our Poverty Pole from a small log. This is in the tradition of message sticks. However it is important that if you use a log you make sure that you harvest it responsibly.

The colours on the end represent the red, black and yellow of the Aboriginal People and the blue and green of the Torres Strait Islander people. We left the rest white so the hundreds of signatures are easy to read.

You will have to let it dry out fully, otherwise it might crack. If you wait until it is dry it is easier to remove the bark.

You can use ordinary house paint on it. Don't forget to make the base a light colour so that you can write on it. Or you can do what we are going to do with our own line signatures. We will attach them to a small card and tie them onto a pole. The effect will look like cascading feathers.

But perhaps you have other ideas and other materials which you can use to make one.

When you have finished the poverty pole perhaps you can hold a special signing ceremony. Or you could sign it as part of a workshop or forum.

When it is signed display it in a prominent place to show the whole world that you support the campaign to Make Indigenous Poverty History!

The NATSIEC Launch Poverty Pole