​Challenge Poverty Week took place last week and, here at REACH, we’ve been talking to the people in our community who can help us make a difference.

Our engagement and advocacy lead, Saffron Carter, and her volunteer team, met with local councillors to show the extent of poverty in our community and the results of a summer campaign, asking people to write a word on a special tablecloth to describe the hardship they’re facing and what they want to see changed.  We speak to people who regularly face the dilemma - ‘heat or eat?’

Much of our work is formed from research, through 1-2-1 conversations with our clients, our new campaigns focus group (made up of past and present clients) and the wider community.

Our Money Mentor, Tracey, continues her work in schools, teaching basic budgeting techniques to pupils who, in the next few years, will be entering the workforce. Tracey has also been invited into Highpoint Prison where prisoners preparing for release have been taught similar skills, helping them integrate back into the outside world.

Much of our work is formed from research, done through our focus panel, made up of clients and former clients who themselves have experienced hardship first-hand.

Alongside this, our new Community Connector, Elaine Hewes, is helping us to build relationships with organisations and groups in our area.  Elaine supports REACH clients to move forward, using a social prescribing approach, which builds the clients' confidence and enables them to make a new network of friends and support for them. 

Earlier this year we were invited to be part of a panel ourselves by Healthwatch Suffolk, which looked at the root causes and solutions to tackling poverty. https://healthwatchsuffolk.co.uk/poverty/

Whilst we wish we didn’t have to exist, everyone at REACH – whether it be the staff, volunteers, trustees, donors, and supporters, truly believes we can overcome poverty and we look forward to the day when charities like us are not needed.