"For those who live in poverty, to get ahead is like licking honey off a thorn. Impossible but sweet. I’m looking forward to a time when we all can be one, no matter where you’re from or the color of your skin."
See Tianna featured in the Philadelphia Inquirer and in the Washington Post.
Click below to see a video Tianna recently recorded about the importance of federal assistance programs. The video was made for the Coalition on Human Needs.
Hear Tianna on WHYY's Voices in the Family with Dan Gottlieb.
See Tianna's writing and photography featured by Media Voices for Children.
See Tianna featured in a Philadelphia Inquirer article about the launch of Sesame Street's new initiative to support low-income families in eating healthy.
At 31 with three children, Tianna is a wise and articulate chronicler of the lives of low income families. She is a keen observer of hard times. One of Tianna's favorite photos is a shot she took of her year-old twins in their stroller, eating cheese curls on a sunny day. “That picture,” she said, “represents happiness.” She wants her children to be lawyers, doctors, engineers.
“My children are my life,” Tianna said. “A lot of times I let my well-being go for them. But what good mother doesn’t?”
Tianna talks extensively about the way social programs work at cross-purposes: how, if you’re on public assistance but babysit for a friend for $40, you could jeopardize your entire welfare check. It’s all because of strange rules that don’t seem to take into account what it’s really like to live poor in Philadelphia.
It takes a toll. “I am tired,” she said. “And a lot of mothers out here are tired, too. Women out here live in unbearable conditions, and all of them are struggling. There’s so much violence. Our youth is lost. We need more programs for teens with babies, for the elderly who are afraid to go outside.
“We’re all hoping for a better house, a better neighborhood, a better life.”
Tianna's updates, three years into the project:
"I still live in the First District, where things around me are still bad, but I refuse to be counted out. Since becoming a member of Witnesses to Hunger, I have accomplished many things. For example, I spoke at the Senate rotunda in May 2009. I recently got married to my children's father. I have better resources to help my fellow sisters as well as family and friends, yet I still struggle every day. I am hopeful things will get better. I was recently hired by Witnesses as the Research Assistant to help interview new mothers in the program part-time. I look forward to getting started in helping others, which is my passion. I also look forward to going to college in the fall for Behavioral Heath and Social Justice.”
Updated October 21, 2011