Women Thriving: a transformative year for Community Savers

Darren | 09 Dec 2021

The announcement of the third national lockdown on 6 January 2021 was not the start to the year that anyone had hoped for… the rollercoaster ride of the COVID-19 pandemic, was, it seemed, still rolling on.

As the Women’s Budget Group find, COVID has had a disproportionate impact on low-income women for whom the pandemic has worsened already challenging situations ‘in terms of health, employment and unpaid work, resulting in increased levels of poverty, debt and mental health deterioration’.

Community Savers’ ability to support their communities through such profoundly challenging times in 2021 has been strengthened significantly by three grants from the We Love Manchester charity’s Stronger Communities Fund, and the Smallwood Trust’s Frontline Women (see April news) and Women Thrive funds.

We Love Manchester!

Manchester-based groups have been able to use the We Love Manchester funding to relaunch their savings meetings after the lockdown easing in March, enabling people to build up some savings again and improving mental health and wellbeing through an array of activities and events.

Mums Mart were able to relaunch their savings meetings in March and hold a fantastic AGM and family fun day in August benefiting over 100 local families leading to lots of new members. They have gone on to raise over £300 at their Christmas Fair this month where local residents were able to benefit from low-cost Christmas gifts.

Miles Platting Savers Celebration and Relaunch, September 2021

Miles Platting Savers had a fantastic relaunch event in September attracting over 100 local residents and leading to an additional ten members joining. Participants celebrated with a community wall made up of drawings of the household goods and other items the Savers have been able to provide to 34 families this year through their small grants programme (via Henry Smith Charity). MP Savers are also active members in the Miles Platting Community and Age Friendly Network – MP-CAN!, which successfully merged MP Community Network and MP Age Friendly Neighbourhoods board in July this year. Members are now united behind an exciting vision for the area including a climate action plan and a community-driven social club development after the loss of many community facilities since 2007.

In Hulme, Hopton Hopefuls were able to use We Love Manchester funds to organise an “International BBQ” together with On Top of the World Project where Savers were able to share progress with tenants on their Ageing Well work for older tenants in the Aquarius estate which is driving forward a “Naturally Occurring Retirement Community” model. This has led to a new Independent Living Adviser post and will soon see recruitment of a new Development Worker to take forward the NORC model in partnership with tenants. The initiative has shaped One Manchester’s plans for supporting older tower block tenants across Hulme. Excitingly, the GMCA’s Ageing Hub has now taken up this work as a best practice case study and are exploring ways to roll out the model with housing providers across GM.

Dishes from the Carribbean, China, and Sudan were among the delights at the Hopton BBQ!

Beyond Manchester, Brinnington Savers and Arbourthorne Social Savers have done a brilliant job of keeping their savings meetings going throughout the year despite repeated challenges with COVID and a broken ankle to boot! Brinnington have been able to build on the work they have been doing supporting older residents with digital inclusion and savings accumulation to attract a £2,000 grant from Stockport Homes Community Fund – great news!

Retreat, Reflection… Recognition!

Since September, Community Savers have been on a transformative journey of retreat and reflection which was made possible by some generous donations from our fantastic supporters out there and a significant capacity-building budget from Women Thrive Fund. Thank you so much to all who have donated and to the Smallwood Trust for your ongoing faith and interest in our work!

Our two-day retreat in Snowdonia was a game-changer for the network (why retreats matter), building and strengthening relationships between women leaders (and with CLASS), deepening leaders understanding of each other’s visions and projects, celebrating our achievements, and taking home souls filled with inspiration and motivation.

This gave us the solidarity and shared purpose we needed for two really productive theory of change and strategic planning workshops with leaders in the final two weeks of September facilitated by our long-term cheerleaders Participate!

Developing a shared theory of change, September 2021

Together with all the amazing support members have provided in their neighbourhoods throughout the year, the retreat and workshops contributed directly to the wonderful recognition of our transformative potential from the Tudor Trust who have awarded Community Savers and CLASS an unrestricted grant of £40,000 per year for three years.

Savers have found dialogue with the Tudor Trust positive and enabling giving everyone an opportunity to shine. Thank-you Tudor Trust for your kind words of recognition:

“The trustees really liked the emphasis on women’s leadership and the deep recognition of community expertise which is at the heart of CLASS’s work, and which sits at the core of the Community Savers groups. They were excited by the trust, mutual support and vision for change held within the groups, and by the clear sense of connection between members of different groups […]

The trustees saw the need for an organisation like CLASS to provide the development and technical support which enables the groups to flourish and felt that governance arrangements had been carefully thought through to support genuine working in alliance with the Community Savers network. Above all there was a sense of real excitement about what the groups are doing for their communities, as well as a huge interest in seeing how things develop over the next few years. The rooted and radical nature of the work, and the group members’ ability just to get things done were also greatly appreciated!”

We look forward to getting a lot more ‘things done’ in 2022!

Tags:

Annual retreat, Arbourthorne, Brinnington, Hulme, Miles Platting, Smallwood Trust, Transformation, Tudor Trust, We Love Manchester, Women Thrive Fund, Wythenshawe

Women-led savings for financial & social wellbeing

Darren | 08 Apr 2021

The Money Advice Service estimates that 22% of UK adults have less than £100 in savings, yet savings are critical to wellbeing, decent living standards, and long-term family resilience. Recent research by the Resolution Foundation (2020) shows that low-income women have the least savings and are worst impacted economically by the coronavirus pandemic. At the same time, research is increasingly revealing that it is women more than men who have suffered the worst mental health impacts of the pandemic. The health and social injustices the COVID-19 crisis has exposed have been widely reported, especially the disturbing reality of a death rate twice as high in deprived compared to affluent areas. Yet the fact of these health inequalities is nothing new. It is an uncomfortable truth that it has taken a pandemic with a death toll of 149,000 and counting for this to be considered a national concern.

This is the context in which our women-led savings groups have been operating: using savings as the glue through which women can address inequality and isolation with togetherness, fun and mutual aid. Together the savings groups build financial resilience, but also confidence, skills and collective social welfare responses which have the power to unite low-income women around locally-driven solutions that work for women and families.

Three groups who particularly focus on mums, families and older women are Brinnington Savers, Mums Mart, and Sheffield Social Savers. Since January, they have been able to benefit from support from the Smallwood Trust through the National Lottery’s ‘Frontline Women’s Fund’.

Sharon Davis of Mums Mart says “the funding couldn’t have come at a better time”. While groups have adapted their activities into COVID emergency response work, most of the weekly savings meetings had been put on hold with significant impacts on members mental health and ability to save or access support. This funding followed hot on the heels of the network’s Lottery-funded ‘Go Digital!’ project through which community group leaders have developed the ability to run activities online and support their members to increase their own digital skills for participation. Support from the Smallwood Trust gave leaders the boost to restart savings meetings either online using these new skills, or face-to-face in COVID-safe venues, as well as additional funding to be able to reach older women and families who were really struggling with isolation, or accessing essential items and financial support.

Georgie Mitchell from Sheffield Social Savers shared how one of the women they have been able to support “is a single parent who is really active with volunteering in the community even though she has a lot of challenges of her own. Her daughter broke her leg just before schools opened up again. She was in a plaster cast all the way up to her hip but the hospital said they couldn’t give her a wheelchair. To get a wheelchair she was going to have to pay £18 per week to rent one which she just couldn’t afford, and without it her daughter wasn’t going to be able to go to back to school. We were able to pay for the wheelchair for six weeks for her.”

Another group (left anonymous here) has been able to support a family fleeing a situation of domestic violence and provide crisis support to an older woman who was contemplating suicide due to months of isolation amidst long-term mental health challenges.

Sharon Davis, Mums Mart Treasurer, recounts how: “We have always had women of lots of different ages participate in Mums Mart – we’re not just mums we’re also grans, daughters and sometimes great-grannies! Some of our longest-term members are now getting quite elderly and one woman in particular called Jean is now 75 and she has no family nearby so during COVID she has completely relied on us for support. She has had a lot of health problems and been in and out of hospital for multiple tests and procedures. She has been isolating on her own at home since March 2020 – a whole year now. We have taken her to appointments and brought her home, we check in on her every week to see that she is ok and just have a bit of a chat, and we deliver her food and basic necessities regularly. She says she doesn’t know what she would have done without us during lockdown.”

Donna Varley, of Brinnington Savers reported that: “The Frontline Women’s funding enabled us to relaunch our weekly savings peer support meetings again. The place we normally meet has been closed since the first lockdown and some of us have been really struggling with our mental health after being stuck at home, some of us have children with learning disabilities and other mental health challenges at home through the school closures. Although they had Education, Health and Care Plans, some were too afraid to go to school even though they would have been allowed.

Brinnington Savers have relaunched their weekly meeitngs in a COVID-safe venue *(some members are mask exempt)*.

Being able to meet meant we could also do taster sessions on tablets with some of our members who are at home without internet or digital skills. We’ve been able to buy three tablets and two mobile wifi devices for three of our Over-50s members who developed the confidence and interest to use one independently. One of our members, Christine, doesn’t even own a mobile phone. Christine has enjoyed it so much she has just had BT internet installed at home.”

We all want to say a big thank-you to the Smallwood Trust and the National Lottery Community Fund. But also: Community Savers groups are always looking for new communities to do learning exchanges with if you want to find out more. Feel free to contact one of the groups featured on our home page directly to set up an exchange, or contact CLASS for assistance.

Tags:

Arbourthorne, Brinnington, Brinnington Savers, Mums Mart, Sheffield, Wythenshawe

Networks get stronger despite coronavirus isolation

Darren | 24 Jun 2020

In the third of a series of articles looking at the experiences of some of our members during the pandemic, Rowena Harding asks Sharon Davis about the community response in Wythenshawe.

Wythenshawe is a connected community. It’s got numerous community centres, healthy cooking and food growing projects, a good neighbours scheme, and Mums Mart – a women-led community association running markets, lunch clubs and a savings scheme. So what has happened to the people who use and need those services as the coronavirus closed public spaces, restricted community meetings and forced people indoors to isolate? The community heroes who had been running those services are still there – they’re just finding new ways to reach out and connect.

Take Sharon Davis. She’s been the driving force behind the Mums Mart savings scheme in Wythenshawe and supported the setting up of new women-led savings groups in Brinnington, Hulme and Miles Platting. Mums Mart’s savings group meets in a community location, where a weekly lunch is also available. It’s through these activities that Sharon has come to know people in the area who may need help now the virus has forced them behind doors.

“Since lockdown, we have been identifying where people live and taking the food we get donated from Marks and Spencers,” Sharon explains. The group was able to access emergency community funding, so they had money to spend on essential items that weren’t donated.

“I think it’s been useful that we had our group,” Sharon said. “We’ve got phone numbers [for the savings groups members], and I speak to them often. We’ve got a few Facebook messenger groups and if anything goes wrong they call me. We have had people connecting with us on messenger, or I’ll see something on Facebook,” Sharon explains of a chance posting that led her to get dog food for a veteran with underlying health issues who shouldn’t be going to the shops.

She’s also been able to get nappies for parents who can’t go out and items for people who simply can’t afford it. Those in the community who lost jobs due to virus-related layoffs still have to wait six weeks for money to come through, and those who have been furloughed may be getting 80% of their salary paid by the government, but as Sharon points out, they still have 100% of bills to pay.

We hear the phrase “self isolating” so much in the COVID era, but Sharon says many can’t imagine the reality of isolation that people are going through. She talks of a woman in her nineties living alone, who’d love to give her a hug; a man in his eighties with Parkinsons who had not left his house for 14 weeks; and a family with three children in a middle flat, all at home together and not going outside. When Sharon went to drop off some food to one woman, she was told to keep it for someone who needed it more. This woman told her that what she was really struggling with was loneliness.

Sharon realised there’s also the potential benefit of having the large community space where they used to meet. She’s been doing refurb on the place while it’s been quiet, but when she heard this woman’s loneliness Sharon told her there’s plenty of space for her to come in and have a brew from a distance. As the lockdown begins to lift, the Mums Mart group will try and have a distanced meeting so they can reconnect in person.

It’s not just Sharon that is helping the community get what they need. Thanks to the initiative of another connected community member, Sharon now has a drop off point for bulk items that is also passed onto residents in that location. Sharon’s daughter Sian also joins her for the big shop and they store items to reduce the amount of times they need to go to the shops. Everyone is looking after each other, Sharon says. “In my opinion, people are looking out for their neighbours much more. Let’s hope it stays.”