Child Poverty, Literacy, and Fitness in Canada

  • Almost 1 million children live in poverty in Canada today.

  • There are many “working poor”. 40% of low-income children live in families where at least one parent works full-time year round, up from 33% in the 1990s.

  • In 2001, teachers spent $143 million of their own money to buy books/reading materials for students.

  • By the time they start school, children living in poverty are 4.5 times behind their peers in vocabulary development.

  • The higher a nation’s literacy skills, the more likely its population is to have healthier habits and lifestyles.

  • 75% of children from low-income homes do not participate in organized sports, compared to only one-quarter of other children.

  • Children from low-income homes are twice as likely as children from middle-class homes to be living in neighbourhoods with violence, drug trafficking and vandalism as everyday occurrences.

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Land Acknowledgement

We would like to acknowledge the land on which we work, and which Start2Finish operates, is part of the Treaty Lands and Territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit. For thousands of years, Indigenous peoples inhabited and cared for this land. In particular, we acknowledge the territory of the Anishinabek, Huron-Wendat, Haudenosaunee and Ojibway/Chippewa peoples; the land that is home to the Metis; and most recently, the territory of the Mississaugas of the Credit First Nation who are direct descendants of the Mississaugas of the Credit. We are grateful to have the opportunity to work on this land, and by doing so, give our respect to its first inhabitants.

We welcome you to acknowledge the land you are on https://www.whose.land/fr/

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