“For one moment it was OK to be me, for the first time in my 22 years of living.”

Keira’s journey includes many, many facets of trauma, including intimate-partner violence, homelessness, racist abuse and ongoing poverty, but it also shows incredible resilience and courage. I was deeply touched by it on a personal level.

From a professional perspective, it’s an example of the power of a personal story to get to know a life different to your own.

And it’s an example of how empowering it can be for someone to tell their story and contribute to a project designed to help people who’ve experienced similar challenges.

Keira’s story is part of a community research project that does research “with people, rather than on people”. Keira is a community adviser, using her personal, expert-level knowledge of the complexities of poverty to inform solutions.

100 Families is a Western Australian project based on the Auckland Family 100 project, developed to help bring about a deeper understanding of the experiences of families living in urban poverty. Family 100 is one of the most successful pieces of design research I’m aware of, having had a major policy influence on both the former and current prime minister of New Zealand.

I hope the Western Australian government is ready to pay attention to the stories of the 400 Perth families, 100 of whom are making time for fortnightly interviews over a year. There must be so many more powerful stories like Keira’s just waiting to be heard.

Recommended by Emma Blomkamp.