This episode explores poverty as it exist in rural and urban areas in the Appalachia region of Western Pennsylvania by examining the reactions of people and groups to the efforts being made to change the area. Through a comprehensive study of the complexities of poverty, "Appalachia - Survival of a Region" emphasizes the important role that attitude plays as a human reason for poverty. The program points out that attitudes can be developed in different ways - through social behavioral patterns that run in families, through lace of awareness of the need for change, and through traditions of nationality. Episode host Norman Stein, in studio and on location, talks with local social workers, civic leaders, economists, and other people concerned with the poverty problem. In essence, their comments indicate the dire need for the introduction of new values of life to the Appalachia area. If they are to win their fight for survival, the experts insist that the people of the poverty-stricken region must be given the necessary help to reconcile themselves to new social attitudes, to new requirements of mobility, to new adjustments, and to different and increased professional skills. Part of the necessary help, they explain, may be found in legislation such as the Appalachia Regional Development Act of 1964 and the Anti-Poverty Bill. APPALACHIA - SURVIVAL OF A REGION: Produced for National Educational Television by WQED, Pittsburgh (Description adapted from documents in the NET Microfiche) In this series several of National Educational Televisions affiliated stations take a close look at controversies in their own areas that may greatly affect the entire nation. Each of the local problems is presented from the points of view of those who have been involved in it, or who have watched its gradual development. The 32 half-hour episodes that comprise this series were originally recorded on videotape. (Description adapted from documents in the NET Microfiche)
