Dignity, Agency, Power
Read about how we used our resources and the impact we made in 2022-23, our 40th anniversary year.
Could you be a trustee for APLE (Addressing Poverty with Lived Experience)?
We’re pleased to share this invitation from the APLE Collective (who work in partnership with Church Action on Poverty on projects like this year’s ‘Dignity For All’ conference):
This is an exciting opportunity in inclusive governance. APLE is a national collective of individuals and organisations with lived experience of poverty. Our aim is to create a sustainable, grassroots network across the UK to raise awareness of poverty, challenge the stigma surrounding it and contributing to its eradication. As a network we promote the voices of those with lived experience of poverty and we work collaboratively with others to influence change.
Our Partners: Good Things Foundation, Ada Lovelace Institute, Trussell Trust, APPG Poverty. APPG Data Poverty
- Over the past six months we have been preparing APLE members with lived experience of poverty to become APLE trustees. We are looking for people new to APLE to join them. We welcome expressions of interest from individuals who are able to make a real contribution to the APLE Collective through their skills and experience. We are particularly keen to hear from people who have:
- a strong background in fundraising/income generation;
- HR;
- policy development.
We are looking for people who are:
- Committed to our vision, mission, and values.
- Able to dedicate the necessary time and effort to carry out the trustee responsibility effectively (1 day per month)
- Through your knowledge, experience and expertise be able to support the guidance relating to operational needs and future financial sustainability of the Collective.
- Values-driven and lead by example.
- A strong team player who can work with other trustees to make decisions collectively to advance the best interests of the APLE Collective.
- Informed – has some understanding of governance and the legal duties of a charity.
If you would like any further information or would like an expression of interest form, please contact Tracey Herrington or visit the APLE Collective website.
The closing date for this position is 30 October 2023.
Click on the right to download the autumn 2023 issue of SPARK, our newsletter for supporters of Church Action on Poverty.
Annual report and accounts
Read our annual review and financial statements for the financial year 2021-22.
Catholic Social Teaching and human dignity
Watch a talk given by theologian Anna Rowlands at the 2022 AGM of our North East group This talk was […]
News
SPARK newsletter autumn 2022
Click on the right to download the autumn 2022 issue of SPARK, our newsletter for supporters of Church Action on […]
Bible study
Politics, self and drama in our responses to scripture
Chris Hughes, a Catholic priest and member of Church Action on Poverty North East, explores how the parable of the […]
We're looking forward to our 'Dignity for All' conference this summer. One of our key partners in the event is the APLE Collective. Here's their story.
The APLE Collective is a national collective of individuals who experience poverty, working together with organisations that support us to take positive action to eradicate poverty.
The Collective was formed in 2018, when a number of groups led by people with direct experience of poverty were invited to meet up with the Poverty2Solutions alliance (ATD Fourth World, Dole Animators and Thrive):
- Hope Rising Action
- Salford Poverty Truth Commission
- West Cheshire Poverty Truth Commission
- Community Pride CIC
- Expert Citizens
All agreed that it would be good to come together as a larger network of people with direct experience of poverty. It is only when people with direct experience of an issue are able to affect the decisions that affect them that real, meaningful change can happen. People with direct experience of poverty have experience and expertise that are critical to inform effective decision-making processes. They have the potential to make positive advancements with life chances and improvements in personal livelihoods. Having a lone voice without support makes this difficult. A collective can offer support and make it possible to affect change.
The collective agreed this mission statement:
“We aim to create a sustainable grassroots network across the UK. To raise awareness of poverty, reduce stigma and work together to affect change”
The first piece of work actioned by the APLE collective was held on October 17th (International Day for the Eradication of Poverty). Groups led by people with direct experience of poverty throughout the UK united and raised awareness through activities including an event at the House of Lords , a ‘speakers’ corner’, a workshop for the Social Audit Network Annual Conference, creating Poverty Zines, a Twitter takeover of journalist Ros Wynne Jones’ Wigan Pier Project, and a letter to the Secretary of State for Work and Pensions which was published by The Times.
APLE Collective continued to develop in 2019, with another successful International Day for the Eradication of Poverty. APLE Collective members asked for groups with lived experience of poverty to share their anti-poverty campaign action with APLE. This activism was mapped onto an interactive UK Map which enabled users of APLE’s aplecollective.com website to scroll over icons on the map and see what anti-poverty activism by lived experience was happening across the UK.
As the pandemic was declared in March 2020 face-to-face meetings became Zoom meetings, and digital exclusion among our members was an immediate issue. Digital exclusion for APLE Collective was an issue not simply in terms of accessing community support, public health information, home education and job searching, but more fundamentally about voice. To be digitally excluded in 2020 meant to be silenced.
We spoke at the All-Party Parliamentary Group on Universal Credit, at the Local Trust Conference and at a variety of other locally based events sharing the issues around the digital divide and seeking solutions. This digital divide campaigning was amplified during the International Day for the Eradication of Poverty, when we once again lit up our UK map with the actions and voices of lived experience.
The APLE campaign to address the digital divide continued to gain traction through 2021, and we won a UK Parliament Award for Digital Campaigner of the Year 2021!
“It’s great to see the recognition of the campaigning work produced by the APLE Collective. APLE were quick to respond to many different issues both locally and nationally.”
Tracey Herrington
We also published a book, Voices of Lived Experience of Poverty During COVID-19, which asked: “How would your experience of the COVID-19 pandemic have been different if you had no access to the internet?“
Drawing on case studies from Thrive Teeside, ATD Fourth World and Expert Citizens (APLE Collective organisations), this book interrogates the term ‘lived experience’. It critically investigates how knowledge gained from lived experiences of poverty is integral to developing effective COVID-19 policy responses.
And since June 2021, we have held an annual #APLEMonth! The APLE Collective highlighted and celebrated all of the organisations, charities and individuals who have lived experience of poverty or use their voice to campaign against poverty and inequality.
Church Action on Poverty is excited to be working in partnership with the APLE collective. They are helping to make sure that our ‘Dignity for All’ conference is genuinely led by the real experts – people with lived experience of poverty.
Great news of a success for a campaign highlighted at a Church Action on Poverty event! Chris Hughes, of our North East group, reports.
At Church Action on Poverty North East’s event for Church Action on Poverty Sunday 2023 at St Cuthbert’s, North Shields, a student from St Thomas More High School in North Shields talked about the injustice of having to pay full fare for Arriva Buses.
As part of their listening cycle as a member of Tyne and Wear Citizens, students from the school had expressed their frustration at having to pay adult fares from 16. It meant trips to school, Newcastle for work and or social purposes became expensive and added to their own and family financial pressures.
Attempts at contacting Arriva Buses had been fruitless until the Mayor of the North of Tyne Combined Authority, Jamie O’Driscoll, contacted the company on behalf of the school. This did produce a response.
Students met with their Commercial Director, Kim Purcell, in July 2023. Ms Purcell was impressed with the students and promised to explore what could be done.They had dressed up in their parents’ work clothes to make the point that being perceived as adults can look absurd.
The students were delighted to recently discover that Arriva had announced that as of this month, all young people from 17 to 20 would only have to pay £1 for each one-way ticket. There is no doubt that their campaign was influential in bringing about this change.
Thousands of young people and their families across the North East are going to benefit from this change and from the campaigning efforts of the students of St Thomas More. Congratulations and much respect to all involved!
Chris Hughes is a governor of St Thomas More High School and a member of Church Action on Poverty North East.
Click on the right to download the latest issue of SPARK, our newsletter for supporters of Church Action on Poverty.
7∶00pm, Thursday 27 April
Central URC
60 Norfolk Street, Sheffield S1 2JB
Our local group in Sheffield are pleased to invite you to their AGM – their first face -to-face meeting since the end of lockdown.
The doors will open at 6.30pm and we start promptly at 7pm. Refreshments will be available.
Maria Marshall from the Independent Food Aid Network (IFAN) will speak on:
The growing need for charitable food aid and a ‘cash first’ approach
Maria will tell us about the work of IFAN, the situation on the ground with the rising need for charitable food aid and IFAN’s advocacy for a ‘cash first ‘approach on a local and national level and how food banks have been supporting this.
Later in the meeting we will share our plans for future activities and we would value your input.
Us and our partner at Purple Shoots hosted an online introduction to how churches can help set up and support Self-Reliant Groups (SRGs)
On the 21 June, we met online to discuss how churches can create and support Self-reliant groups. Watch the recording below to learn what Self-reliant groups are, how to support them, and how they can become a force for good in your community.
Linda Granville is an anti-poverty activist who worked in the past with Church Action on Poverty on Teesside. On World Book Day 2023, w're pleased to share details of her new autobiography, 'Journey Into Activism'.
Linda says:
“With Church Action on Poverty’s Local People National Voice campaign in 1998 I finally found my own voice! Both in the Teesside and National Poverty hearing in Church House in London and at the CCBI National conference in Swanick. I’ve written about my involvement with the Debt on your Doorstep campaign and the Living Ghosts campaign.
“I want you to know how much I appreciate Church Action on Poverty for playing its part in the very beginning getting this long-term unemployed single parent (dole scrounger) with two kids with different fathers having never being married, to allow me to analyse my own and other situations and help to provide a pathway to give me dignity and to work toward an absolutely fulfilling life.”
“Let LOVE trickle down and let the fear of poverty disappear forever.”
Church Action on Poverty trustee Gemma Athanasius-Coleman (who has spoken about her own journey into activism here) took a look at Linda’s book, and this was her reaction:
“Linda’s book highlights a recurring theme throughout where vulnerable members of society are kept in the cycle and trap of poverty. The words ‘unemployed’, ‘single parent’, and ‘poverty’ imply that if you don’t have a job (regardless of the reason) and if you have a child but not a partner then you are oppressively underestimated, often used as an economic scapegoat so that the government can cut benefits and that you deserve to remain poor.
“Gender inequalities which are so out of date are still playing a huge role in the exploitation of women’s labour in the home, which is not only undervalued but continues to reinforce this negative gender stereotype. Poverty creates fear, and the current ‘trickle down’ economic system is ensuring this demographic stays down and remains exploited. As Linda says in the book we should ‘Let LOVE trickle down and let the fear of poverty disappear forever.’”