Sisseton, SD

The Sisseton area hosted a poverty workshop for employers and the Sisseton School District staff during the day.  Later in the evening Kjerstin Smith also gave an hour and a half seminar about poverty to community members. There were about 23 community members there along with many SDSU extension members.  Kjerstin talked about the different types of register for language, the hidden words behind each individual/town/culture, but the most important thing that she told us to not judge is the word “economic” and “culture”. They are two totally different topics but they are associated with poverty in some way, but not together.  Poverty isn’t just about money, it’s about a lack of resources.  Some families who live in poverty don’t want to leave poverty because they like their lives, besides the fact that they don’t have enough money, they are content with their lives.  Some people in poverty are afraid to go into the middle class life. Just a fact that I learned last night was that an adult who is average, has a vocabulary of 900 words, while a three year old, wealthy lifestyle, has a vocabulary of about 1200 words.    

Kjerstin also had the community members talk in groups at their tables about “Why did you come?”,  ”What frustrates you or what gifts did you get out from working with a person who is in poverty?”  

Another group question was, “What kind of situation, that you were in, made you feel out of place?”  

 She stated that each community has their own hidden rules.  Sisseton doesn’t have a sign up as soon as you pull into town saying, “You can’t say this…, you have to do this…, or  you have to wear this…”   

People who are in poverty can feel hesitant about going to school because most schools are based on middle class lifestyles.  That goes back to the question about the situation that made you feel out of place. 

 Since the seminar was only an hour and a half long for the community members, we as a community can get more information or resources about poverty and distribute it or present it to the community in the near future. 

 Every community has the opportunity to make a change, and this is just one step that Sisseton is doing to make that change. 

This entry was posted on Friday, January 4th, 2008 at 2:31 pm and is filed under 02. Poverty: Skills and Mobilizing, 03. Poverty: Action, 10. Community: Skills and Mobilizing. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.