"This guide is designed to help facilitators and educators to engage with audiences. The aim is to deepen the understanding of the underlying causes of poverty and inequality as explored in the Why Poverty? films. Why Poverty? uses documentary film to get people talking about poverty. The collection is made up of eight long films and thirty-four shorts by award-winning filmmakers, as well as new and emerging talents. The stories, originating from twenty-eight countries, are moving and thought-provoking as they tackle big issues and pose challenging questions. In November 2012, these films were screened worldwide on more than seventy national television networks and are now available online and on DVD. It has been said that, in this century, we have the tools and potential to overcome extreme poverty. But poverty persists, and the gap between the poor and the wealthy continues to widen. The demographics of poverty are also changing, with new poverty emerging in the North and new wealth emerging in the previously poorer South. Poverty and inequality is global, and the causes for its continued existence are largely structural. The long films explore these structural causes, whether they are tax evasion by multinational companies, lack of land rights for the poor, unequal access to health care, or gender imbalance. The short films provide glimpses into people’s lives as they try to deal with poverty and inequality. All the films can be watched as separate and complete stories. But as a collection, they provide a great platform from which to delve into questions about why poverty still exists in a world of plenty." (Introduction)