As one of the 17 Sustainable Development Goals, poverty alleviation has been receiving continuous concern in the global society. In Japan, poverty has been recognized as one of the biggest challenges to sustainability and well-being. Moreover, Japan is recognized as one of the worst players in eliminating poverty of children and youths among the OECD countries. Toward 2030, the method of eliminating poverty for children and youths has received increasing attention from society. In the second session of the AEL 2024 Summer Course Pres-study session, we were pleased to welcome Prof. Kaori Suetomi (Nihon University) to give us a lecture on Child and Youth Poverty: Considering Approaches to Elimination. Thirty-one participants joined in this session.

   In the first part of the session, Prof. Suetomi introduced the situation of child and youth poverty in Japan and provided knowledge of the multidimensional poverty index to underline the comprehensive dimensions of poverty. She also shared some examples of eliminating child and youth poverty in the UK and Japan. At the end of the lecture, Prof. Suetomi raised the following three questions for group discussion.

1. What serious problems of child and youth poverty in your country do you consider? Why do you think so?
2. Why do children and families become poor in your country? Please consider this concerning governmental data, qualified newspaper articles, or online reports.
3. How can child and youth poverty be improved? Discuss based on the content of the lecture and your own ideas.

In the 2nd part of the session, 31 participants were divided into six groups for discussion. In the reflection session, representatives of each group shared their understanding of poverty in different social contexts. Participants also emphasized solutions for eliminating poverty from multidimensions, such as social, economic, and psychological perspectives. The session provided us with an excellent opportunity to share our understanding of poverty and knowledge of how to improve or eliminate poverty of children and youths in Japan and beyond.