What is Poverty Stoplight?

Poverty is Multidimensional

Poverty is defined as the set of deprivations that limit the ability of an individual and their family to enjoy a good quality of life. It manifests itself in all areas of human life and affects each family differently. The Poverty Stoplight addresses these challenges by recognizing the unique ways poverty affects each family and providing targeted interventions to help them overcome these obstacles and improve their overall well-being. It provides a comprehensive metric that enables families to assess their level of poverty across various indicators and offers a methodology to identify personalized strategies to address their specific needs. By taking a holistic approach, the Stoplight aims to grow and strengthen each family across 6 dimensions including: Income and Employment, Organization and Participation, Housing and Infrastructure, Health and Environment, Education and Culture, and Interiority and Motivation.

Income & Employment

Having adequate income and employment enables families to address the other five dimensions of poverty.

Health & Environment

Families must prioritize their personal health and the condition of their environment to foster a thriving and productive community.

Housing & Infrastructure

Families require proper living conditions and reliable infrastructure to support their daily needs and safeguard their well-being.

Organization & Participation

When families actively engage in community groups and make their voices heard, they can drive the changes they wish to see in their communities.

Education & Culture

Prioritizing education allows families to enhance their confidence, expertise, and skills, which are essential for generating income and contributing positively to society.

Interiority & Motivation

When families cultivate strong self-esteem and motivation, they will proactively seek solutions to their problems and think of others before making decisions.

These dimensions are further divided into 50 indicators. Each indicator has the following characteristics: (1) it uses stoplight colors to indicate extreme poverty (red), poverty (yellow) and no poverty (green); (2) it uses simple images and text to help families identify and visualize their level of poverty in an understandable and significant way; (3) it is adaptable, ensuring that the survey represents locally relevant conditions; and (4) it is actionable, achievable and aspirational, allowing families to become the central agents of their poverty elimination strategies.

The self-assessment survey is administered through software compatible with computers, tablets or mobile phones. Upon completion, the results are visually displayed, enabling families to easily identify their strengths in green and areas needing improvement in yellow and red. This clear visual representation helps families understand their current situation and prioritize their efforts.

Thus, the Poverty Stoplight breaks down the overwhelming concept of poverty into smaller, more manageable problems that can be solved through simple interventions, making the "invisible" manifestations of poverty visible in the shape of simple, understandable indicators.

One of the key strengths of this methodology is its ability to drive positive outcomes by focusing on measurable aspects. By identifying solutions for each indicator, it facilitates the creation of actionable steps and priorities, optimizing the use of existing resources and fostering collaboration among all stakeholders involved.

Happy families are all alike; every unhappy family is unhappy in its own way.

— Leo Tolstoy, Anna Karenina

How It Helps

The Poverty Stoplight generates many tangible benefits for the families taking the survey as well as for the organizations that administer it.

Families
ORGANIZATIONS

Families who take the survey are able to:

Visualize their own poverty in a simplified way.
Become actors, not objects, of development and poverty elimination.
Break down the overwhelming concept of poverty into manageable fragments.
Develop their own Life Map to overcome poverty.

Who can use it?

Besides engaging individuals and families as agents of change in their own lives, the data collected through the Poverty Stoplight methodology has proven to be useful across communities, organizations, NGOs and within businesses.

Social Organizations

Social organizations that become Poverty Stoplight Hubs, such as NGOs, universities, social enterprises, social entrepreneurs, multilateral development and faith-based organizations, collaborate with partners in their region or country to work together towards the common goal of poverty elimination.

Businesses

Business associations partnering with the Poverty Stoplight are connected to a network of firms that implement the program at the individual company level. Poverty Stoplight partners not only enhance firm profits and worker satisfaction but also elevate the company’s image, work, and brand within the community.

Communities

With the ability to show communities exactly where and how poverty is manifested in their neighborhoods, the Poverty Stoplight has the capacity to bring in considerable influence and resources into the fight against poverty. Communities that use the Poverty Stoplight activate the capacity of families to become agents of change in their own lives.