UK Charity Turns Attention To Native Poor

Charity begins at home. It is literally so for Save the Children, the UK-based nonprofit, known for its work in crisis-hit hotspots around the globe. It is now turning its attention closer to home, to the woefully credit-crunched Britons.

Previously it used to work in countries like Zimbabwe, Vietnam and Sierra Leone, but the global economic downturn has prompted a change of tack.

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"Today, Save the Children is helping distribute money to families right on our doorsteps," says Colette Marshall, head of the charity's British operations.

The London-based charity has long raised funds to help children abroad, with emotional campaigns featuring youngsters in misery and poverty overseas. But it has never before distributed money to people in Britain.

"Families (in Britain) are at a crisis point," Marshall warned.

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"There are children whose parents can't afford a proper meal or to fix a boiler without going deep into debt. The financial crisis makes their situation ever bleaker."

Save the Children has launched a programme aimed at helping about 1,000 families, including some of the poorest in the country, who will receive 100 pounds (145 dollars, 110 euros) to 200 pounds each.

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The money will help Britain's most impoverished "meet their need for essential items and avoid incurring unmanageable debts", said Helen Dent, the chief executive of Family Action, a non-governmental organisation (NGO) joining the campaign.

Without any savings, Britain's underclass is often reduced to borrowing loans at exorbitant rates, which Family Action denounces as a "poverty premium".

The NGO cited the case of a cooker costing 160 pounds to buy outright but costing more than 400 pounds in installments to loan companies, which are flourishing thanks to the financial crisis.

"Things stand to get much worse for the fifth of the population already living in poverty," Antonia Bance, from the NGO Oxfam's UK Poverty programme, told AFP.

Oxfam's British arm published a report Wednesday entitled: "Close to home: UK poverty and the economic downturn".

The study found that Britain's poorest were trapped in a downward spiral, with their incomes falling due to unemployment or a reduction in working hours and a rise in the cost of living.

Food prices rose by 11.3 percent in the 12 months to February, while electricity and gas prices were up 22.3 percent.

An estimated 10,000 tenants are going to lose their homes because the owners can no longer afford to pay the mortgage, which, with rents going up, will probably force them into more expensive accommodation.

The combination of factors has triggered a "perfect storm, impacting on the financial and personal well-being of children and their parents", said Save the Children, which estimates that one person is declared bankrupt every four and a half minutes.

The crisis has given birth to a new class of poor in Britain which Oxfam has baptised "FREDs": "Forgotten, Ripped off, Excluded, Debt-ridden".

Save the Children admits that the 100 to 200 pounds it will hand to families is only a "drop in the ocean" and is urging the government to do more to tackle the situation when it presents its budget this month.

The charity wants the government to "make sure that benefits or low salaries are adequate to bring up children. It needs to invest three billion pounds to meet its 2010 target to end child poverty".

"It is clear that investing money in the poorest is not only vital and urgent for those families, it is necessary for the economy," said Marshall.

Meanwhile Oxfam has drawn up a six-point plan or recommendations, notably demanding an "emergency increase in out-of-work benefits".

"We hear a lot about bankers but not a lot about FREDs," said Bance.

Source-AFP
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