Upcoming Workshop

Do you wonder how to find out what your community needs and what is the best thing to do? Then, attend our workshop

‘Understand your Community’

This workshop will include:

·      How to make use of information?

·      Building stronger connections with your community;
·      Finding out who else is doing what?
·      And it will introduce our community research toolkit (available for participants)

Date: January 23 2013
Venue: Faith in Community Dundee, Kirkton

All of this helps in developing appropriate responses to the needs in your community and having the evidence for funding applications.

Our training is aimed at those from faith communities in Dundee’s priority areas, but if you are tackling poverty and interested, please contact either Varsha or Gordon on t: 825351 or e: varsha@faithincommunitydundee.org

Other workshops and trainings are planned to include:

·      Welfare Reform and how do we respond?

·      Fund Raising for those wanting to address poverty in their community

Benefit Cuts and Universal Credit

Welfare Reform Benefit Cuts

The main headlines from April 2013 are:

Housing Benefit: If you have a spare room you will lose 14% of your total eligible rent. For two or more spare rooms the reduction in eligible rent for housing benefit is 25%

Benefit Cap: The total amount of benefit, including housing benefit, tax credit, income support, ESA etc will be fixed at £500 per week for a couple/lone parent and £350 per week for single people.

Disability Living Allowance (DLA): This will be replaced by Personal Independence Payments (PIP) for those of working age.

Introduction of Universal Credit

From October 2013: Universal Credit (UC) is set to replace the six existing benefits – income support, income based jobseeker’s allowance, income related employment and support allowance, housing benefit, child tax credit and working tax credit.

UC will be paid monthly in arrears into an account. UC will be paid to one individual per household. This means that in a couple, the assessment for entitlements will be made jointly, and only one person will receive the payment. This will be a significant change for many people.
 

Reflection

‘If your brother becomes poor and cannot maintain himself with you, you shall support him as though he were a stranger and a sojourner, and he shall live with you’ Leviticus 25:35

Poverty is in Africa – Yes/No?

Poverty is in Japan – Yes/No?

Poverty is in Scotland - Yes/No?

If you answered Yes to all three of these questions you got it right. We often link poverty with poor children dying in Africa but even in a technologically advanced and wealthy country like Japan, poverty exists.

 

Satomi Sato, a 51-year-old widow, knew it was tough, working two jobs and raising a teenage daughter on less than $17,000 a year. Still, she was surprised last autumn when the government announced for the first time an official poverty line — and she was below it. “I don’t want to use the word poverty, but I’m definitely poor,” said Ms. Sato, who works mornings making boxed lunches and afternoons delivering newspapers. “Poverty is still a very unfamiliar word in Japan.”

After years of economic stagnation and widening income disparities, this once proudly egalitarian nation is belatedly waking up to the fact that it has a large and growing number of poor people. Poverty in Scotland is on the increase not just in the beggars we see on the city streets but in all neighbourhoods rich and poor. Let us hear from Brian in Glasgow.

I had left school without many qualifications mainly because of things like bullying. There is only so much you can take, and when I had started to fight back I was excluded from school time and again. LATER… I had to leave college early because my mum was struggling and I was doing bits and pieces of work as I could, but it wasn't enough. I had to give her a hand, I had to work. I got a job in MacDonalds. They say you shouldn't have any regrets in your life, but I think that is one of my regrets, that I didn't finish that college course.

LATER in my life I met Diane, my partner. We made a little bit of money and so managed to get a one bed roomed flat together. We worked hard to make it our home. But the mortgage was one of those things that we started to fall behind on. We ended up in a situation where we were robbing Peter to pay Paul, and then the mortgage company were threatening to re-possess as well. So we put the house up for sale. It wasn't easy, it really wasn't easy, we loved that house and had put a lot of work into it. We walked away with nothing, but we got all those people off our back. Sometimes it's about more than the money. So we had to try to get a council house. I was still working constantly on the buses trying to bring money in to pay for everything.

The week after we moved in we had drug dealers move in next door to us, and then there were needles all over the close. People banging the door at all hours of the night, at the wrong door, looking for drugs. Diane answered the door at 4 one morning in desperation as she was trying to get the baby to sleep. She was dragged out by the hair. I was going out to work not knowing what I was going to come back to, knowing my family didn't feel safe there. It was unbearable. I nearly cracked in two with the stress of it all.

It gets to the stage where you can't eat, you can't sleep, you're just so stressed out. It's constant there's nothing you can do about it We eventually got a move to where we are now, and it's so much nicer and we know we can rely on our neighbours. There's still hassle but not like before - we're safe. We were lucky to have a roof over our heads, but at the same time, how much do you have to put up with and be grateful for? Now I work on average 70 hours a week. Me and my partner are just like two ships passing in the night sometimes.

That is just to survive, and put a bit away for the future. I don't know how much longer 'll have a job for - people are losing their jobs left right and centre.

The biggest change for me was becoming a Dad. I felt inspired to make a difference in other people's lives and to make the world a better place for my daughter's future. And the past is my motivation to get out of bed in the morning. I can't change the past, but as for the future I want to make a difference.  I'm not stopping until things change.

Open your mouth, judge righteously, defend the rights of the poor and needy. Proverbs 31:9

I think it's fair to say that there are two attitudes to poverty that abound at  this Christmas season, One of peace and goodwill towards all which makes people more charitable and aware of others needs and a self-centred disdain and fear or even suspicion that poverty is peoples’ own fault, that they're simply lazy or inferior. Often we prefer not to look at the poor too closely; it's depressing, and they're surely not fun people to be with. These attitudes are a world away from God's attitudes. Neediness arouses compassion in God and action.

We may think: "Of course God loves the poor; he loves everybody." But it's not as simple as that; God's character is presented as a model for our own.  If God values the poor, we have to think about what that means for us.

Fay Lamont, Priest-In-Charge at St. Ninian's Scottish Episcopal Church, Dundee

(Brian’s story has been taken from Poverty Truth Commission, part of Faith in Community Scotland

 

Funding Information

Comic Relief Local Communities Programme

This programme aims to empower local people, enabling them to create lasting change in their communities. Projects should be run by people directly affected by the issues they are dealing with and priority will be given to small, locally based groups or organisations in areas of disadvantage that have a clear understanding of the needs of their community. Closing date for applications: 11th January 2013.

The MSE Charity

This programme will re-open for applications on the 1st January 2013. It provides grants to constituted community based groups (including schools) to help fight financial and consumer illiteracy and to educate and inform adults and children about consumer and debt issues. Grants of up to £5,000 are available for group projects such as innovative schemes that seek to educate people about money, debt and consumer issues. The programme will close once 40 completed applications that meet the criteria have been submitted.

Volant Charitable Trust

The Trust provides funds to charities whose purpose is to alleviate poverty and social deprivation with particular emphasis on children and women's issues. Apply for funding of up to £10,000 through this Trust.

Other useful links for identifying funding opportunities

Funding 4 Dundee

Funding Scotland
Grantsnet

FiCD News

New Chair for FiCD Management Committee

 

Rev Leslie McEwen Barrett B.D., F.R.I.C.S. has been recently appointed the Chair for Faith in Community Dundee’s Management Committee. Leslie is a Church of Scotland minister currently employed as University Chaplain at the University of Abertay Dundee having served in parishes in Aberdeenshire and Angus. Before ministry he worked as a Chartered Surveyor. A relative newcomer to FiCD Leslie was attracted to the organization for the potential that faith groups have to make a difference in the lives of people who find themselves disadvantaged by material poverty, spiritual poverty and poverty of opportunity.

Leslie says: “There is a clear challenge in the Christian Gospel to love our neighbour as we love ourselves - working out the implications of this and identifying practical ways of doing it is an important task. Working on this task together across all the faith communities at a local level seems to hold much promise for the future.” Home for Leslie lies across the Tay in North East Fife. He is married to Ruth and they have three children - all now with families of their own. In his spare time he is an amateur musician playing and teaching the Scottish or Great Highland bagpipe and studying “piobaireachd” the classical music of the bagpipe.

New Appointments at FiCD

 

 

Gordon Sharp was involved with Faith in Community Dundee (FiCD) back in 2009/2010 when it was a steering group.  He comes to FiCD from the Dundee Partnership team within the City Council. Prior to that Gordon worked for the Jericho Benedictine Society, Positive Steps and for many years was Development Worker with the Dundee Federation of Tenants Associations. Beyond that – in time immemorial – Gordon was an Assistant Bank Manager for about 10 years working in Downfield, Lochee and Coldside.  Gordon is fairly well known in Dundee (hopefully for good reasons) having also been the chairperson of the West End Community Council for more than a decade.

 

Gordon has a degree in English and Philosophy (he thinks a lot and questions everything) as well as an MBA and certificate in Community Education.  He says: “I’ve always believed in community, the one human family, and the need to be family on this planet. The Voyager spacecraft leaving our solar system at this time tell us we really have to make the best of our world and being human, because we’re not going anywhere else fast!  Plus, Dundee really is one of the best places on this planet and everyone here really does have the right to think that.”

 

 

Varsha Gyawali brings with her over 7 years of experience in international development, with a focus on conflict resolution and peacebuilding at both macro and micro-level. As an Advisor, she helped set up Centre for Conflict Resolution & Human Security (CCRHS) in New Delhi, India and led its programmes from 2009 until 2011. Prior to CCRHS, she was at The Carter Center, Nepal, where she was extensively involved in political liaison with key actors playing a critical role in Nepal’s peace and political transition process, as Project Coordinator from 2005 to 2007. Varsha has two Master’s degrees; MA in Peace Studies from University of Bradford and MBA from Kathmandu University. As a peace practitioner, she endorses the argument by Johan Galtung on “Positive Peace,” which not only means end of violence but ensuring a dignified life for the poor and weaker section without poverty, discrimination and injustice. She is an avid traveller and loves spending time with her husband, Gavin. 

 

St. Ninian’s Stay and Play Family Support Group

Excerpts from interview with Rhona Armitage, Group Leader of St. Ninian’s Stay and Play Family Support Group, that recently received DVA Volunteer Friendly Award and a Dundee Partnership Award.

Describe your area of work?
Our project is trying to reach out to and support isolated families with children aged 0-5 years, who are distressed not only by poverty, income inequalities and mental health problems but may also suffer from abuses like drugs, alcohol and physical violence. We are supporting people who have not engaged with the statutory services. We offer structured programmes and therapeutic services like gym, drama, arts etc., provide free food and invite statutory and voluntary bodies to the group including language therapy, pre-school home visiting service, social work, adult literacy, Dundee Women’s Aid and Money Matters.

What is the impact of your work on local communities?

The outcome has been very positive for both the children and their parents. We have been able to develop linkages for them with various statutory services and other voluntary groups. Most importantly people are beginning to build stronger relationships and maintain them outside the group.

What is your connection with Faith?
We are based in St. Ninian’s Scottish Episcopal Church and have clear connection with faith; but it depends on how you define the term. Our project is not only for Christians and we welcome everyone – families of no faith and families from other faiths who may benefit from our work. Fay Lamont, who is one of the Trustees of the project, does pastoral work for the group and spends time developing relationship with families attending the group.

What are the strengths of your group?
The strength of our group is that we understand the needs of our community and provide services that families and children enjoy and benefit from. Our Trustees also bring a wealth of knowledge and experience to the table and we also have a pool of dedicated volunteers.

What are the challenges that your group face?
The families we work with tend to lack aspiration in life and have low self-esteem; it is difficult to encourage them to participate in any training or development-based activities. It takes a very long time to build trust, and one has to be very patient and persistent with them. In general, there is lack of collaboration between various agencies for more effective responses to family problems. In our group, it is also increasingly difficult to sustain qualified and experienced volunteers.

Any message to people who will be reading your interview…
IT COULD HAPPEN TO ANYBODY. DON’T JUDGE….LISTEN!

If you wish to know more about the project or get in touch with Rhona , please contact Rhona Armitage (e: cooriekiminca@tiscali.co.uk or m:07947897893) 

Welfare Reforms and Action to Mitigate their Impacts

In common with Councils the length and breadth of the country, Dundee City Council has been considering the impacts of the Governments Welfare Reforms and what might be done to ameliorate their worst impacts – and it is important not to underestimate how many people will be affected and how severe these impacts could be. A third of Dundee and therefore a third of Dundonians live in areas designated as being in the 15% most deprived in Scotland and so are heavily reliant on the welfare system.

The Government announced cuts in the welfare budget amounting to £11billion shortly after the elections in 2010. Later that year, they announced a further £6billion on top of that. The effect in Dundee is that by the time the changes are all rolled out over the next two or three years, benefit claimants in Dundee will have lost approximately £27.5million per annum. That’s money out of the pockets of the poorest and most vulnerable in Dundee and further cuts are planned.

 

Alongside these cuts, the Government is introducing a Universal Credit (UC), merging Working Tax Credit, Income Support, income based Job Seekers Allowance, income related Employment Support Allowance, and Hosing Benefit. UC will be paid in one monthly payment to one individual in a household, and will no longer include enough to cover all housing costs, even for those formerly in receipt of full Housing Benefit. It will present a serious budgeting challenge for people not used to handling one large benefit payment across all household expenses for the month. It is predicted that large numbers of UC recipients will struggle to manage household expenses. Dundee City Council has set up a Welfare Reforms Working Group to assess and plan for the impacts of the reforms on both Council services and its customers. Amongst other things, it is expected that there will be a huge increase in numbers of people seeking help and advice from the Council and its partners in the voluntary sector, and a key element of the Council’s strategy is development of an early intervention model for advice.

 

At present, experience shows that all too often, when people get into financial difficulties, they put off seeking expert advice for too long. They’ll rob Peter to pay Paul, muddle through, put their heads in the sand and hope the problem will go away. By the time they realise it won’t, the problem has escalated into something multi-faceted and complex which needs what is known as a crisis intervention, needing several appointments and hours of the adviser’s time to sort things out. With pressure on budgets and staff resources, while demand for help rises dramatically, the only thing to do is look for ways of working smarter, finding ways of supporting the same staff to deal with more clients in the time available – hence the early intervention model.

 

Front-line Council staff meets with the public in many ways in the course of delivering a wide range of services.  Where references is made to financial or benefit problems front-line staff are being trained and encouraged to ask if it might be useful to get advice with an expert adviser within the Council or one of its voluntary sector partners. These expert advisers can carry out an income maximisation check to see if they might be entitled to more or different benefits, or they might be able to negotiate with creditors to reschedule debt and reduce monthly outgoings. They can even help with advice on energy costs to possibly reduce these ever rising fuel bills. If this can be done at the earliest possible stage, before problems become deep-rooted and complex, the time spent by advice staff can be shortened, allowing more people to be seen. This is just one of what will become a raft of strategies to mitigate the effects of the changes in the pipeline.

Derek Miller, Financial Inclusion Development Officer,

Dundee City Council

Information on financial inclusion services in Dundee can be found at the Dundee City Council website. The Council’s duty line for money advice and debt counselling is 431167 and it is open from Monday to Friday between 9.30am to 4.30 p.m.