Quaker Social Action - News Blog

Judith Moran, Director of Quaker Social Action, reflects on the hopeful journey that led to QSA’s latest innovation, a project called Knees Up

“Optimism is the faith that leads to achievement. Nothing can be done without hope and confidence.” Helen Keller

QSA has always drawn heavily from two places: we are fundamentally east London and fundamentally Quaker. Our diverse projects can seem like they’ve very little holding them together, but they work, on more than a wing and a prayer because of these two threads. We’ve just started something new which, to my mind, typifies this.

The idea behind Knees Up is simple; what we have in common with our neighbours is greater than that which divides us. Often, however, we never get to know this, because we never speak or interact. In east London, where we work, any one street will be a breathtaking mix of difference; income, lifestyle, ethnicity, religion, people drawn from around the world and those rare few who were born within earshot of the Bells of Bow.

I hope the idea of Knees Up is simple – but deceptive. We start by supporting residents in Bow to set up a street party. Why a street party? Well, all the memories I prodded about street parties evoked recollections of an unusual day, a day of unprecedented camaraderie. Also, it gets people working together, but on something practical, tangible and positive.

As a Quaker organisation, we’re led by our values. In 2004, a publication was launched called “Local action changing lives” (New Philanthropy Capital), which asserted that the traditional way of thinking about poor areas within the UK was to think of communities that were lacking, and were in need. I am used to thinking “what can we do to fill this gap?”. I was struck by approaching it differently, and, rather than thinking of the communities that we work within as areas of deficit, to consider them as areas of potential.

Thus came the germ of the idea that led to this. The title is a clue – we are signalling that this is not a sombre project. Indeed, we have found it almost impossible not to raise a smile when talking of it. One funder told us that there was hilarity from her staff, processing a pile of applications, when one called Knees Up landed on the desk. We didn’t have a penny to our name and already we were having an impact!

The street party is really a Trojan horse, and an opportunity for us to gain trust with the residents so that, after the party, we can ask them how it went, and ask if it has made them think differently about their street or their neighours, and if it has made them think that there is something else they want to make happen, or change. We will then support them to make the changes they want to make – respecting their right to determine what their community needs. People will think and feel about the place they live differently and, we hope, ask why those positive associations can’t be made permanent. Knees Up is an imaginative project, in the sense that it makes an imagined community real for a day. If we can achieve something together with residents for a day, why not for longer?

Street parties can suggest a frivolous project, aimed at temporarily buoying people’s spirits. Yet it is deadly serious and aimed at connecting residents with their neighbours for long-term gain. It sounds risky, doesn’t it? Who doesn’t have a fear of fists flying, or a dispute unravelling? We’re working in communities that usually only hear bad news about themselves. Suggesting residents get together in this way will be a vote of confidence in the area that QSA has been working in for 140 years. We have faith in the potential of this community and have seen it born out. We will do all we can to minimise risk, but just because there are risks won’t put us off.

Nonetheless, I fear our ambitions may be perceived as naïve and inappropriately optimistic in today’s society – having a vision of neighbours and streets pulling together for common benefit. I mentioned this to a QSA worker who responded strongly “If a charity won’t be optimistic, then who will?” Many Quaker initiatives have begun with overwhelming optimism and are a triumph of optimism over what many regard as common sense. Why protest about Trident? Why did Elizabeth Fry go into prisons in hope of reform, or so many Quakers work against the odds to end the slave trade? Why invest in a no-hope community like Bow? For any of these many ask, “why bother, you can’t make a difference”. A combination of optimism and values made my colleague optimistic that we can and I couldn’t agree more.

Do you agree too? Edward Mackay, who is running Knees Up, will be keeping a blog so you can follow our progress here

Part of our funding is from the Faith Communities Capacity Building Fund and requires us to explicitly undertake multi-faith work. If you or your meeting are within reach of East London and want to share our optimistic journey please contact Edward on 020 8983 9199, edwardmackay@qsa.org.uk.

Some great news for QSA celebrated in The Friend of 12 January 2007 by Edward Mackay

The Baring Foundation has awarded a grant of £87,540 to Quaker Social Action from their Strengthening the Voluntary Sector stream of funding. From 581 applicants, 31 organisations were shortlisted and 22 were chosen to receive funding. QSA’s grant will run in line with its next strategic plan and was awarded to help strengthen the organisation’s independence from statutory funding.

Since 2001, the government has been the largest funder of the voluntary sector – before this it had been individual donations from supporters. 64% of people recently surveyed by the Church Urban Fund felt that charities were doing the most in Britain to tackle poverty. With government services increasingly carried out by charities through a process of commissioning does this mean that public money is being spent as efficiently and effectively as possible in the third sector? Or is the voluntary sector becoming a means of stealth privatisation and the erosion of the welfare state?

The Baring Foundation’s Strengthening the Voluntary Sector programme acknowledges that a cornerstone for charities is their independent voice and action, and that this independence can be endangered if organisations feel too constrained or compromised by a variety of factors, such as what funders require. The Baring Foundation asked organisations to come up with a strategy of how they wished to strengthen their own organisation in order to retain this integrity. QSA’s director, Judith Moran, said “We’re thrilled to receive this money – particularly as with such stiff competition it is a real vote of confidence. QSA works with people living with the realities of poverty; we often speaks on their behalf. We would like to support them better to speak on their own behalf on the issues that matter to them, to local authorities, or policy makers, or the media thereby enabling us all to better live out the Quaker commitment to speak truth to power.”

Baring Foundation
fundraising
voluntary sector

Edward Mackay looked at a difficult issue for a Quaker charity working in the field of anti-poverty.

For most men (till by losing rendered sager)
Will back their own opinions by a wager.
Byron, Beppo (XXVII)

In our annual report, Quaker Social Action made a number of claims including, “QSA does not bring any grand plan for the reduction of poverty. It’s a patchwork affair that sees individual needs and tries out ideas, taking forward those that work” and “Conversation is at the heart of what we do.” These thoughts are an attempt to balance our commitments to pragmatism on one hand, our non-creedal stance on the other, with the integrity required by our testimonies. It is a conversational attempt to open out our struggles as QSA to you, the Quaker community, on whose behalf and with whose financial support we operate.

We do not apply for money from the national lottery. We are faithful to the advice to “resist the desire to acquire… income through… speculation or games of chance” (QF&P 1.02.39). Later in the same volume we are wisely counselled that a renunciation of gambling “should lead to an examination of the system which permits or encourages these abuses, and to a demand for drastic changes.” (QF&P 20.63). Through contentious objection, we limit the work we can do. Yet some of our work is engaged in that very examination and the enacting of that change in the lives of individuals. We struggle with the fact that faithfulness to one half of Friends’ stance on gambling, leads us to forgo further opportunities to live faithfully the other. Made of Money? is a QSA project praised in these pages by campaigners, academics and practitioners as a timely, necessary intervention against debt-culture.

It is a family learning project on money matters which aims to support families on low incomes to talk, listen and learn about money and its impact on their daily lives. In Quaker terms, it is a bold incarnation of the testimony to simplicity. Despite its youth, it is changing lives. Currently funded by Friends Provident Foundation it has been described by their director as a “grounded, practical and family-based approach to the emotional realities of managing money on a low income… [We are] inspired and delighted to support a project which reflected our… support for Quaker causes.”

I, too, am proud to be associated with it, as I am that QSA has resisted the temptation to take funding from the lottery. Which makes it uncomfortable to learn of a new funding stream from The Big Lottery Family Learning Fund, which specifically focuses on the way of working engaged in by Made of Money? Potentially, we have the chance to use £100,000 of lottery money – around twice the figure we receive annually from Friends; undoubtedly secured through short-term unethical means – to build a culture in the long-term which is financially ethical and families who are materially secure and emotionally literate.

In short, we could use money sourced by the lottery to make a genuine impact on the very culture that allows the lottery to have an invidious effect upon the socially excluded. Are we dogmatically running the risk that short-term opposition can prevent us from laying the foundation stones of a society which has no place for the lottery? Boycotts are important and occasionally powerful – we need only think of South Africa – but is there a case to be made for active engagement rather than straightforward objection? Whilst the honourable witness of Friends and other religious and social groups has not brought the Lottery down, the active engagement of QSA in Made of Money? is making an impact now. We find ourselves once again in the uncomfortable position of pitting two positive choices against one another and would like to know what Friends feel we should do. Has this particular expression of the testimony against gambling become like William Penn’s sword; are we wearing it longer than we canst when love requires something else of us? Are we refusing to beat it into a ploughshare because we have unwittingly made a creed out of a concern? Or would taking the money be an act of collusion in a system that is contrary to the experience and faith of Friends? Does integrity require that we must always resist the proceeds of games of chance? We would welcome the wisdom and discernment of Friends and would encourage you to bring these questions into the light and your light to our discussions. Your thoughts can be sent to our trustees via our clerk, Neil Johnson at Quaker Social Action, 18 Victoria Park Square, Bethnal Green, London E2 9PF or c/o edwardmackay@qsa.org.uk)

[lottery]
[Quaker]
[gambling]
[fundraising]
[dilema]

(Mark 14.7)

Finally, from the same issue of The Friend of 27 October 2006, Edward Mackay looked at the historical context of attitudes to poverty in Britain.

If one thing could be said to unite the history of poverty in Britain it is a distrust of the poor and a disbelief in the necessity for the “relief of beggars and paupers” now described, often derisively, in terms of tackling social exclusion.

As early as 1536 and the first statutory regulation of poverty-relief, moves for the reduction of poverty were coupled with a desire to see “sturdy beggars” put to work. This, however, seemed positively liberal in comparison with the move 11 years later, which introduced slavery as a remedy for vagrancy. Enormously unpopular and rapidly repealed, the stage was set for the combative pitting of two attitudes: one places emphasis upon poverty as a social concern with social solutions, the other sees the poor as a body of undesirables to be removed from or absorbed into mainstream society. Funding for poverty reduction initiatives within this Elizabethan framework lay with the church in the rubble of reformations. With the concomitant centralisation and merging of ecclesiastical and state power (and the dissolution of the monasteries) previous systems of poor relief were drying up.

Acts of Parliament though the following century of revolutions absorbed what had been near-voluntary contributions for the purpose of poor relief into a system approximate to church taxation through tithing. Though resisted by our nonconformist forbears – often in lieu of more radical solutions – it is possible to discern a crude foreshadowing of the welfare state, albeit outside the state per se. Constitutional revolutions gave way to demographic ones and the eighteenth century saw a dramatic rise in population and therefore prices. This was coupled with an apocalyptic fear from within the emergent social sciences, most notably expressed in Thomas Malthus’ famous principle of population, which anticipated starvation as population rose well ahead of food production. Malthus’ long shadow, often dubiously coupled with a simplistic social application of the theory of natural selection, hung over the Victorian era and persists to this day. It was present in the satirical words placed in the mouth of Ebenezer Scrooge: “Are there no prisons? … And the Union workhouses? …Are they still in operation?… The Treadmill and the Poor Law are in full vigour, then?… I was afraid, that something had occurred to stop them in their useful course… If [their occupants] would rather die…they had better do it, and decrease the surplus population.”

Indeed, the Poor Law was in full vigour and though the amendment act of 1834 solidified this system it was a step towards the welfare state in that it placed responsibility squarely in the hands of the state, refusing to fall back on the churches which, for the first time, were being genuinely tolerated in their ungovernable plurality. Edward Chadwick’s name, and his brand of utilitarian philosophy, dominated the intellectual underpinning of this system, focussing on decreasing expenditure, aiming to discipline an “irresponsible population.”

More familiar names began to emerge, such as B.S. Rowntree with his meticulous documentation and Charles Booth who identified old age as major source of poverty and began the momentum which led to the Joseph Chamberlain’s 1908 Old Age Pensions Act. The social flagship of Asquith’s Liberal administration, celebrated by the emergent Labour movement, it was an imitation of the German system introduced a generation previously, which was financed by a weekly contribution. National Insurance followed in 1911 and the Unemployment Assistance Board Act in 1934-5. Even at the philosophical moment when utilitarianism was giving way to paternalism a new force was shifting the emphasis in the increasingly politicised Labour movement.

The phrase ‘welfare state’ was coined in the 1930s in contrast to the armament focussed ‘warfare state’. In the closing years of the Second World War, the potential harvest that could be gathered from collective effort turned to peace seemed like the natural inheritance of the experience of the Home Front.

The following years are too easily simplified into a post-war consensus for welfareism which came crashing down in 1979. It’s not far off, but reality is, of course, patchier. The arguments are more familiar and the preserve of the other writers in this edition. Nonetheless, echoes of Elizabethan contempt for sturdy beggars can be heard in Norman Tebbitt’s bicycling advice and the first policy statement made by Blair as Prime Minister in 1997 advocating American-style euphemistic ‘welfare-to-work’. As personal debt in the UK well exceeds the trillion mark, ‘slavery for vagrancy’ ceases to seem so far off. And as the pressures of foreign policy commitments revive a keen interest in the voluntary sector for both Brown and Cameron there is the discernable footprint of the juggling of poor-relief responsibility between church and state through the war-torn seventeenth and eighteenth centuries. The poor – and the arguments with and about them - will indeed, it seems, be with us always.

[history of poverty]
[welfare state]

For the same issue of The Friend published on 27 October 2006, Professor Ruth Lister of Loughborough University, a member of the Fabian Comission on Life Chances and Child Poverty outlined some of her research.

Poverty scars our country despite the reduction in child and pensioner poverty under the present government. According to official statistics, in 2004/05 around a fifth of the population and 27 per cent of children were living on a poverty-level income (measured as below 60% of median income). Poverty rates are even higher among some black and minority ethnic groups in particular those of Pakistani or Bangladeshi origin – nearly three out of five children from the Pakistani and Bangladeshi communities are being brought up in poverty.

Poverty as a shaper of life-chances

The Report of the Fabian Commission on Life Chances and Child Poverty states that ‘poverty matters because it undermines people’s opportunity to flourish and thrive. In other words, it matters because of its effects on their life chances’. Among the factors in unequal life chances that it highlights are that:

• the infant mortality rate among children in lower social classes was double that for higher social class groups in 2000-02 and that the gap had widened since 1994-96;
• a marked class gap in educational outcomes at every stage. Indeed ‘by the time children start school, stark inequalities between children from different social backgrounds are already evident in standard tests of development’.

Although the notion of life chances emphasises the long-term consequences of child poverty, the Commission was also clear that this must not detract from the experience of poverty in the here and now: ‘Perhaps the most fundamental of all life chances is the chance to live a fulfilling and rewarding life, beginning in childhood…What the life chances framework encapsulates, above all, is our vision of the good society as one that provides the necessary resources for all its members to live a full and flourishing life and to fulfil their various roles, including as parents, siblings, friends, employees and employers, and citizens’. Poverty makes it harder to fulfil each of these roles and robs many of a full and flourishing life.

Poverty as a material condition

‘Existing not living’ is a common refrain among people on low incomes asked to describe their living conditions. Whatever the consequences and conditions associated with poverty, an inadequate income and material hardship are at its heart and are what differentiate the state of poverty from non-poverty. Going without, constrained choices leaving little room for spontaneity, running out of money, debt are all typical of the living conditions of people living on low benefits and wages. It is a life of insecurity and vulnerability in which the delicate balancing act of getting by can be upset by minor breakdowns of equipment or losses that the rest of us can take in our stride, cushioned by savings or insurance.

A recent Financial Services Authority report on financial capability found that those on lowest incomes took more care in keeping track of expenditure than those on higher incomes and an overview of research into managing on a low income concludes that in general people living in poverty ‘manage their finances with care, skill and resourcefulness’. Nevertheless, they are less likely to make ends meet than others. And managing poverty is hard, time-consuming and tiring work. As one woman put it ‘You’re more tired. I mean…that being poor is so much work, your whole life’.

Poverty in an affluent society spells exclusion from full participation, an exclusion that can be particularly painful for children when they cannot enjoy all the activities that are part and parcel of childhood today. Marketing and the tyranny of the ‘right’ label create a glass barrier between children in low income families and the consumer society. The children can see and often want the consumer goods on the other side; seen from the other side as lacking them – especially the ‘right’ trainers and clothes – they can suffer exclusion and even bullying.

In turn, parents – notably mothers who take the main responsibility for managing poverty and who often act as shock-absorbers as they try to protect other family members from its full impact – feel a sense of failure and guilt. The stress can damage their physical and mental health. As one mother put it, ‘poverty…sucks you in and breaks you’. Richard Wilkinson’s The Impact of Inequality demonstrates the destructive effects of the glass barrier: ‘second-rate goods seem to tell people you are a second-rate person. To believe otherwise is to fundamentally misunderstand the pain of relative poverty or low social status’.

Poverty as a social relation

To understand the pain of poverty it is necessary to understand how poverty is experienced not just as a disadvantaged and insecure economic condition but also as a shameful and corrosive social relation. A deliberative qualitative study carried out by MORI for the Fabian Commission revealed a lack of empathy with parents in poverty, which was symptomatic of what I have called a process of Othering. That is, people in poverty are thought about, talked about and treated as ‘other’ to the rest of us. It is a process of differentiation by which social distance is established and maintained and which all too easily serves to justify poverty and inequality by blaming the ‘other’ for their own and society’s problems.

Thus in the MORI study, insofar as participants acknowledged the existence of child poverty, they tended to blame it on the parents. The researchers suggest that this may help to explain why the issue has failed to resonate with the public. The lesson drawn by the Commission is that ‘politicians and anti-poverty campaigners need to highlight the evidence that mothers and fathers struggle to be good parents to their children despite the difficulties of their circumstances and the impact that parenting in poverty can have on physical and mental health and general morale, particularly for mothers. They also need to demonstrate how good parenting is not usually enough to overcome the hurdles poverty places in the way of children’.

In addition, campaigners need to ensure there is space for the voices of people living in poverty themselves to be heard. Groups like ATD Fourth World and Oxfam GB point out that poverty is characterised by powerlessness and voicelessness. A human rights conceptualisation of poverty requires a more participatory approach in which, in the words of the UN, people living in poverty are seen as ‘strategic partners rather than target groups’. As Moraene Roberts, an activist with ATD Fourth World, told a national poverty hearing ‘No-one asks our views…But we are the real experts of our own hopes and aspirations…We can contribute if you are prepared to give up a little power to allow us to participate as partners in our own future’.

[relative poverty]
[Ruth Lister]
[Fabian Society]

For a special issue of The Friend published on 27 October 2006, on the theme of ‘domestic poverty’, Judith Moran, Quaker Social Action’s director, looked at public attitudes towards poverty in Britain today.

If you were asked whether the quality of life in the UK is best improved by looking after the community’s interest rather than your own, or looking after yourself, which ultimately raises standards for everyone, what would you say?

If you did decide it was better to look after yourself first, well, for the first time in a decade, you would be in the majority. For 20 years, the Henley Centre has been asking the public this question and recently published the response for this year. For the first time in 10 years, more people felt it was best to take a “me first” approach with the percentage of respondents choosing self-interest being almost as high as in the late 1980’s.

Is this bad news? It was in 1987 that Margaret Thatcher talked about people “casting their problems on society”. Her infamous conclusion? “There is no such thing as society”. But is self interest a bad thing? It can be when it is aligned with an attitude that is disdainful or fearful of difference, and judgmental about the experiences and choices others make. Currently, the most visible bogeyman of politicians and the media are young people, with a subtext that these are young people from sink estates, with feckless parents unwilling to engage in “proper” parenting. Given the persistently negative messages about young people and their families it shouldn’t be surprising that recent Fabian Society research concluded that there was little empathy for people in poverty, with poorer families being portrayed as wasteful, selfish and neglectful, lacking aspiration and motivation.

Do people living in poverty have no idea how to manage money? Not true, says ESRC research, they manage their money with care, skill and resourcefulness. They access expensive forms of credit not because they are ignorant but because these are often the only ones available to them. Is it not the case though, that children born into poverty can “better themselves” and not repeat the cycle? Possibly, however Rowntree research into children living in poverty found that growing up in a poor household had a massive negative effect on the aspirations of young people. Children did not ask for things they wanted, nor believed that they would achieve much, they were, in effect, “learning to be poor”.

The Fabian Society research found that people couldn’t see poverty in this country and found it hard to believe that there were working poor. Statistics alone were confusing. Yet, by bringing this picture alive, talking about children going without a winter coat, or learning not to ask for a birthday present, there was a transformational effect. Even “poverty sceptics” were moved by evidence of severe hardship and were willing to countenance higher taxes to combat disadvantage. Interviewed recently in The Guardian, Lisa Harker, the new child poverty tsar, professed herself broadly pleased with the interventions the government are introducing to meet their professed target of eradicating child poverty by 2020. However, she feels that moral outrage is also crucial; “The ending of child poverty is not going to happen until there is far greater public pressure for change”. For Make Poverty History, it was the image of fingers clicking, one click a second, one more child death, that brought home for people the terrible reality of poverty overseas. Poverty in the UK is rarely a matter of life or death but is also enduring, traumatic, relentless, scarring. What image can we find to move ourselves to action and to address this disgrace in our midst?

[domestic poverty]
[make poverty history]
[social exclusion]
[relative poverty]

This article by Edward Mackay was published in The Friend, East End Life and The East London Advertiser after Mohammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank won the 2006 Nobel Peace Prize for pioneering microcredit, the Bangladeshi system which Street Cred uses in east London.

The system which has won Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank the Nobel Peace Prize is working to great effect in east London under the auspices of Quaker Social Action. Street Cred has been using microcredit to change lives, build prospects and hope for low-income women in east London. Long before they caught attention in Oslo, Muhammad Yunus and the Grameen Bank were on the mind of Jennifer Kavanagh who heard about the system and travelled to Poland, Bangladesh and France to study the system and founded Street Cred to work for socially excluded women within our own community.

The Nobel Committee awarded the prize for “efforts to create economic and social development from below. Lasting peace can not be achieved unless large population groups find ways in which to break out of poverty. Microcredit is one such means.” Microcredit works by lending small amounts of money to the unemployed, to poor and to others living in poverty. Through a system of borrowing circles comprised of their peers, money is leant against moral, rather than capital, collateral. These individuals lack steady employment and a verifiable credit history and therefore cannot meet even the most minimum qualifications to gain access to traditional credit. Impoverished people, mostly women, are enabled to engage in projects that allow them to generate an income.

Of this system, Mohammed Yunus says, “Why can’t the poor control any capital? Because they do not inherit any capital or credit, nor does anybody give them access to capital, because we have been made to believe that the poor are not to be trusted with credit – they are not creditworthy. But are banks people-worthy?” His vision is broad and bold, “We have created a slavery-free world, a polio-free world, an apartheid-free world. Creating a poverty-free world would be greater than all these accomplishments while at the same time reinforcing them. This would be a world we could be proud to live in.”

Isebail MacKinnon, project manager of Street Cred, was thrilled at the news of the award. “It is inspiring to work with women who have the commitment and enthusiasm to build up businesses to support themselves and their families. Microcredit is a simple but effective idea. In a sense, the prize has been won by all the women across the world who are pioneering microcredit entrepreneurs – from Bangladesh to Tower Hamlets!” She would like to return to Madagascar, where she has worked before, and set up a microcredit project there.

Quaker Social Action’s Director, Judith Moran, said “This is a really exciting announcement.Yunus and the Grameen Bank are worthy winners. It is wonderful that the Nobel Committee have interpreted peace so broadly and recognised that real peace is built upon economic justice. While microcredit is being celebrated internationally as an intervention for the world’s poorest people, it is sobering to remember that there is a need for it on our own doorstep.” Ultimately, as Yunis himself would argue, it is the testimony of microcredit users that matters most. Echoing the approbation of the Nobel Committee, Street Cred entrepreneur Nermin explains that it is the wholistic approach of microcredit which makes it so important. “It is more than just the money, the best thing is the support and the people you get to know through the groups. Street Cred is a brilliant idea.”

[east London]
[Grameen Bank]
[Mohammed Yunus]
[Nobel Peace Prize]
[microcredit]

A news article from The Friend published on 21 July 2006 to mark the launch of QSA’s emotional financial literacy project.

It’s not everyday that you hear someone appearing on the Guardian’s list of the 100 most influential thinkers in social policy perform a solo a capella rendition of a music hall ditty. Ed Mayo, Chief Executive of the National Consumer Council treated a bemused audience to four verses of “My baby has gone down the plughole” at the launch of Made of Money?, Quaker Social Action’s newest project. The pre-World War I vision of a “poor little thing, so skinny and thin, he ought’ve been bathed in a jug” may not hold much relevance for families living on low incomes in the contemporary East End, but Made of Money? certainly does.

Doorstep lenders, banking institutions offering a proliferation of credit cards and loans on the one hand and the insatiable demands of children in the thralls of peer-group pressure and advertising, create a lethal combination for families on benefits and low incomes. Ed Mayo sees this as compounded by the effect of a consumer culture, which specifically exploits this differential between resources and wants. “As consumers, children live on a knife edge. When commercial opportunity encourages it, society expects them to behave as adults. When circumstances change, they are treated as irresponsible minors. As a result, children are left poorly served, commercially abused and feeing as if they are treated as second class citizens.”

Ruth Lister, Professor of Social Policy at Loughborough University put Made of Money? in the context of her ongoing work into the effect of poverty as not only a material condition, but also a shaper of life-chances and social relations. “To understand the pain of poverty it is necessary to understand how poverty is experienced not just as a disadvantaged and insecure economic condition but also as a shameful and corrosive social relation.”

Kristina Leonnet, Made of Money?’s development worker showed how Made of Money? makes a response to this: “People need and want an informal and non judgemental space to talk openly about money, how it makes them feel, and where they saw a great offer on nappies last week!” Of one of their clients, Kristina was delighted to say, “We’ve been working quite intensely with her through group sessions and one to one work, and she’s told us that she feels happier than she has in a long time. But the change is also apparent to those around her, with even the staff at her children’s school noting how calm she looks. They’ve even asked what her secret was!”

Neil Johnson, Clerk of QSA, spoke about the way that Made of Money? fits into Quaker testimony to simplicity. In this way, Made of Money? like all the work of Quaker Social Action, operates as lived outreach which responds to contemporary problems by embodying the testimonies, promoting countercultural values where they are most keenly needed. Amongst the many questions surrounding financial and emotional literacy, Made of Money? asks, “What did our families, our community, and our friends say and do around money when we were growing up? What aspects of this stays with us today, and how have our more recent experiences shaped our beliefs?” Made of Money? is a response to these questions grounded in the testimony to simplicity that looks set to make a genuine difference to East Londoners today.

[east London]
[emotional literacy]
[financial literacy]
[Ed Mayo]

This article by Else Kvist about four Street Cred entrepreneurs first appeared in the Newham Recorder on 19th July 2006.

Spotlight on women not afraid to go it alone

With optimism for the future of East London currently running high, the region has become saturated with seminars and networking groups all squarely aimed at empowering local people to start their own businesses. But despite the lure of flexible working hours and independence, is it really a good idea to risk financial insecurity and isolation by going it alone? These four women think so, having found practical help through a scheme called Street Cred, run by regeneration charity Quaker Social Action. Street Cred’s development workers support budding businesswomen with advice and training in areas such as marketing, pricing, budgeting and confidence-building. Those whoa re on benefits or low incomes can apply for a loan of £500 through a microcredit scheme to get a business off the ground. The Recorder spoke to the fledgling entrepreneurs as Street Cred celebrated its 150th loan.

WORKING as an artist in the community has given Yvette Rawson personal satisfaction – and helped her come to terms with her dyslexia. The 45-year-old has produced mosaics and textiles for schools, community and education centers and housing estates. Two are on permanent display at Old Town Hall, Stratford. “As a single mother I found it more economical to work from home as childcare is very expensive and employment in the creative industries often exploitative,” said Yvette, of Ridley Road. Leaving Forest Gate School with low self-esteem and no qualifications, Yvette’s dyslexia held her back when looking for employment. So she decided to attend an Art foundation course at Newham College followed by a degree in Design at the University of East London. After deciding to go freelance Yvette sought support from Quaker Social Action and found it helpful to be able to network with creative organisations, other artists and business people. She also received an interest-free loan and some business training. For information on Yvette’s work, email y.rawson@ntlworld.com

FASHION graduate Ann Yasmin Chui decided to go it alone and follow her childhood dream of setting up her own label. She formed ANN ANN after working as a freelance designer and trend forecaster for a handbag importer, and then as a product developer. She now designs leather handbags from her home in Victoria Park Square. Ann got involved with Street Cred after winning a competition through them to go on a networking trip to Holland. Two years on, Ann is already well established, selling her products to a string of high street stores including Selfridges and Hobbs. In 2004 she was awarded Best Accessories Designer at the Profile 4 Trade Fair shortly after starting her own brand. Reflecting on the experience so far Ann said: “The advantages are that I have total control of my own time, get to make all the decisions and enjoy all the rewards. The bad points are doing too much overtime, and it can be lonely at times with just me doing everything.” Ann, who recently married, hopes to expand overseas. For information e-mail a n n @ a n n - a n n .co.uk

JULIA Omari took matters into her own hands after securing a loan to set up her own business selling children’s toys. As a 34-year-old mother to five boys aged between one and 14, Julia discovered a gap in the market when she could not find toys that represented her West Indian culture. “I had to travel to Brixton to find games,” she explained. Julia became the 150th woman to receive a loan from Street Cred, securing £500 through their credit scheme, following a number of years away from work while she looked after her children at their home in Fourth Avenue. She will use the money to buy stock for her business – Nubian Toys – and on driving lessons so that she can transport her products to home parties and events. The toys range from board games incorporating African history and facts (pictured), puzzles with black imagery, plus instruments such as drums and rainsticks. Soon she will stock African wrapping and birthday cards. Julia hopes to expand her enterprise to cover Indian, South American and Bolivian playthings. For information e-mail juliaomari@blackhistory.com

KAREN Gasper hopes to start working from home in her own life-coaching practice by the end of September. She plans to help people discover the best way to improve their lives when they don’t know how, and has completed her training in commerce with help from Quaker Social Action. She said the organisation had been like a gift horse to her. “I’ve had the opportunity to train in areas such as setting up your own business and bookkeeping,” said Karen. Her aim is to provide individuals, families and businesses with advice on such things as healthier lifestyles confidence building and job fulfilment. Karen, 41, currently works parttime as an Early Start midwife in Newham, but hopes running her own business will help generate extra income and allow her to spend more time with her four children. For informationon life coaching, email gasperkaren @yahoo.ie

[east London]
[women entrepreneurs]
[microcredit]

Regeneration & Renewal is a trade publication for organisations working in the field of… well, regeneration and renewal! Each week an innovative practitioner is interviewed by a panel of their peers. On the edition of 7 July 2006 Ramona Doherty, project manager of Made of Money? our emotional-financial literacy project was featured:

Run by charity Quaker Social Action (QSA), Made of Money? is a three-year family learning project working with low-income families in east London. The project encourages people to discuss their hopes, fears and aspirations around money. It aims to work with 100 families during its initial lifespan, and produce learning materials and a report for dissemination throughout the UK. QSA project manager Ramona Doherty answers our panel’s questions.

Q. What’s different about your approach?

A. In terms of financial literacy projects, we’re not just focusing on the practical aspects around budgeting and accessing financial products. Our main aim is to help families communicate more openly about money, and to encourage them to think about what money means to them. We’re giving them the space to explore the impact of consumerism and advertising on their lives as well as addressing the emotional stress of living and bringing up children on a low income.

Q. How did you identify the need for this type of project?

A. QSA ran some financial literacy projects several years ago, and they found that people really wanted to talk about how money made them feel and to look at ways of dealing with the stress. the need was identified through listening to the experiences of local people.

Q. How do you go about finding the families you work with?

A. We’re a relatively new project - we started piloting in January - and the work we’ve done has been through existing local organisations, such as local Surestarts and parenting groups. But now we’re trying to reach families not connected to existing services. We’re organising events during school holidays for families to attend together, advertising them in the local paper and library. We’ll be doing outreach - linking in with doctor’s surgeries and places like that.

Q. What sort of financial advice do you offer?

A. It’s a mixture of the practical and the more emotional. On a session on budgeting we’d look at how you budget, but also your experience of budgeting. We try to link people in with services like the credit unions. A lot of people we see are reliant on doorstep lenders who charge ridiculous rates of interest, so the credit unions are fantastic opportunities for them. We focus on any way in which people can save or manage money more effectively.

Q. What sort of feedback have you had?

A. We’ve had a lot of feedback from the users saying that now they feel more organised and in control of their finances. One woman we worked quite heavily with said that she feels far less stressed and her support workers said they had noticed it as well. She told us her stress was because her finances meant that she was distracted when dealing with her children - she felt she didn’t have the time to relax and enjoy being with them. But she feels much better about it now.

[emotional literacy]
[financial literacy]