GREATER action to combat poverty is required, according to campaigners who are staging a week- long event to highlight the plight of the poor.

Challenge Poverty Week takes place next week, with events across Glasgow organised by the Poverty Alliance and other partners.

Trade unions, women's groups, children's charities and politicians will take part to raise awareness of the estimated 800,000 people in Scotland living in poverty and calling for more help to raise their living standards.

The campaign aims to highlight the reality of poverty and challenge stereotypes, demonstrate what is currently being done to help and demand more action to tackle poverty and its causes.

The first event is a cycle ride from Jordanhill to Bridgeton, to highlight the gap in life expectancy between one the most affluent areas in Glasgow and one of the poorest.

The Poverty Alliance will hold its AGM a week from today, with Deputy First Minister Nicola Sturgeon delivering a speech.

The STUC will host a conference titled 'A Just Scotland: Decent Work Dignified Lives', and a will also hold a march and rally at Glasgow Green to close the week.

Organisations taking part include Children 1st, Children in Scotland, Scottish Women's Aid and Wheatley Housing Group.

The children's charities will hold social media events and parliamentary briefings to highlight poverty and how it can be tackled.

Women's Aid will highlight how women and children bear the brunt of poverty and the Wheatley Group will issue findings from a survey on attitudes.

Peter Kelly, Director of the Poverty Alliance, said: "Poverty in Scotland is a real, and growing, problem.

"The widening inequalities are damaging to our society as a whole.

"We believe that the existence of poverty is a political choice and by working together we can make a real difference."

stewart.paterson@ eveningtimes.co.uk