Rui Pedroto

Poverty ranks among one of the most serious problems of the modern portuguese society. Although progress has been achieved in these last few decades, allowing for the increase of social protection levels and expansion of the network of services available to the most vulnerable citizens, many families, namely monoparental aggregates, large families, families with disabled  members or children, in precarious labor condition or facing unemployment, still experience severe material privation prevening them from satisfying their basic needs. Poverty presents itself as a multidimensional reality, including several aspects of individual existence that go far beyond mere material privation.

The lack of access to quality health care, being oral health care access a clear example, affordable and decent housing facilities, stable and equitable paid jobs, education and qualification déficits, all these factors are mutual interconnected, depriving poorest citizens from their fundamental rights and full inclusion in society.

Fighting poverty, preventing its reproduction on the generations to come, should be an absolute political priority, allowing for the state, civil society, in particular the third sector and organizations and companies, to play their role, aiming to achive a fairer and more inclusive society, thus defending and preserving the modern social state.