A NEW charity-owned lender has been set up with the mission to provide affordable loans for essential items, to the estimated tens of thousands of households in Scotland where children are living in poverty.
A recent report from the charity coalition, End Child Poverty, stated that around 220,000 children in Scotland live in deprivation. It also showed that as more than one-in-three children growing up in central Glasgow (39.2 per cent) is living in poverty. This persistent poverty has a considerable long-term impact on children growing up in the households that are affected.
Fair for You Ltd is a charity whose mission is to remove the ‘poverty premium’ from these households. It does this, in part, through its wholly-owned social enterprise, Fair for You Enterprise CIC, which offers an alternative to high-cost lenders and rent-to-own stores, and provides affordable loans for essential items for the home.
It delivers free of charge to homes across the whole of Scotland, including the Highlands and Islands, and even has a customer in Lerwick on Shetland
Fair for You founder and CEO, Angela Clements, said: “We’re not at all surprised that a map of where our Scottish customers live, reflects very closely the map of child poverty in the Scotland.
“What’s more, as well as necessary ‘white goods’, we find that our customers are most wanting to buy those essential items for their children items such as cots, high chairs, buggies, and bunk beds. Very sadly, we see this similarly reflected in areas of deprivation and poverty.
“Our second Social Impact report, published in September, highlighted the fact that a loan from Fair for You can save households significant sums of money.
“As a result, Scottish households are better able to meet their rent or other bills, start to build up savings or spend on other essentials, often for their children.
“It is clear that there is a huge problem of child poverty in Scotland, which is one of the reasons why we’ve teamed up with the Robertson Trust in Scotland to deliver a lending fund specifically to help address and solve the problem.
“We already have over 500 customers in Scotland, and, with the help of this fund, we intend to treble that figure over the next six months. That’s 1,500 customers given the chance to help themselves out of poverty!
“To do that, we are calling for local authorities, the social and charity sector, social housing providers, and a wide range of voluntary and community agencies to support Fair for You’s challenge to the high-cost lenders and to actively promote it to their service users.
“Together, we can offer a positive, Scotland-wide alternative to the high-cost credit that drains these homes of essential funds and instead provide one that helps them take steps out of poverty.”
ENDS
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Fair for You Enterprise CIC contact details…
Contact: Adrian Oldman
Phone: 0772808267
Email: adrian.oldman@fairforyou.co.uk
Website: http://www.fairforyou.co.uk
