Welcome to CENFACS’ Online Diary!
15 March 2023
Post No. 291
The Week’s Contents
• Spring Relief 2023: Rebuilding and Renewing Lives, Infrastructures and Institutions in the Context of Falling Real Household Disposable Incomes
• Climate Action 3: Induce Carbon Markets to Be Part of Recovery from the Poly-crisis
• Impact Monitoring and Evaluation of Phases A and B of the Building Process from the Coronavirus Impacts
… And much more!
Key Messages
• Spring Relief 2023: Rebuilding and Renewing Lives, Infrastructures and Institutions in the Context of Falling Real Household Disposable Incomes
The Winter Season of Light, which is ending this coming Tuesday, gives us an opportunity to bring some lights and hopes to those in most need so that they can find the reasons to believe in life again. The Season of Light tackles poverty as a lack of hope and expectations. However, our work does not stop there.
Spring is the Season of Rebirth and Rejuvenation. We call it Spring Relief within CENFACS. Generally, the key theme for Spring within CENFACS is Rebuilding or Renewing Lives, Infrastructures and Institutions. In other words, Spring Relief is the season of rebuilding from what has been destroyed by wars, natural disasters, bad economic management, mistakes of the past, other disasters (like the cost-of-living crisis, health crisis of Ebola or COVID-19), etc.
We need to rebuild in order to reduce poverty, stop its re-appearance and avoid the emergence of new types of poverty and new generations of poor people. We want to move away from the endemic structures and institutions of disadvantage, discrimination and inequality towards the poor. During this period, we take the challenge of working with those in need to rebuild their lives, infrastructures, buildings, development of relationships, communities, etc. from damages, losses and worse changes experienced or caused.
So, the key words for the Spring Season are rebuilding and renewing. We shall come back on these words at different occasions as we step into Spring and progress towards its end; especially with our advocacy project of Rebuilding Africa.
• • Build Forward Better Together Greener, Cleaner and Safer this Spring Relief 2023
In order to build forward, it is wise to take into account the context of doing it and how to exactly build forward.
• • • Context of building forward this Spring 2023
Last Spring, our focus was to rebuild and sustain lives, infrastructures and institutions within the contexts of rising prices of energy and food.
This Spring 2023, we are going to help reduce poverty and rebuild lives within the context of Falling Real Household Disposable Incomes. But, what is real household disposable income.
~ Basic understanding of real household disposable incomes
Disposable income is defined by Christopher Pass et al. (1) as
“The amount of income which a person has available after paying INCOME TAX, NATIONAL INSURANCE CONTRIBUTIONS and PENSION contributions” (p. 181)
However, disposable income needs adjustment for inflation. After being adjusted for inflation, disposable income becomes real. The website ‘tutor2u.net’ (2) explains that
“Real disposable income is the post tax and benefit income available to households after an adjustment has been made for price changes”.
In other words, changes in prices of goods and services can lead to the increase or fall in real household disposable incomes.
~ Falls in real household disposable incomes
In recent years, prices and bills keep on raising while real household disposable incomes have failed to match this raising trend. That is to say, incomes are not fully index-linked to keep pace with inflation.
To highlight this fall, the website ‘finder.com’ (3) has revealed that
“The average British adult has £866 in disposable income a month in 2022, which is a reduction of £23 a month from 2020 (£889). Total monthly living costs on average have reached £1,125 with the average rent price being £437 and the average essential spending costs at £688 a month”.
Likewise, the Resolution Foundation (4) found that
“2022 was a year of double-digit inflation that drove a 3.3 per cent – or £800 per household – hit to real disposable incomes, the biggest annual fall in Century”.
The same Resolution Foundation forecasted that
“Household income falls in 2023 will be 3.8 per cent or £880 per household as big as those seen in 2022”.
As a result, living standards are unchanged or getting worse.
According to the Office for National Statistics (5), the figure released on 15 February 2023 for the consumer price inflation in the UK was 10.1%, compared to March 2022 when it was 6.2%.
Similarly, the figure released on 02 February 2023 by the Bank of England (6) for the current bank rate was 4%, whereas the bank rate was 0.75% in March 2022.
In meantime, bills like council tax, rent, telephone, transport, etc. have also risen. Although the energy price is capped at £2,500 on the average household energy bill, we are still waiting for the next policy announcement by the UK’s independent energy regulator, Ofgem, on 26 May 2023.
Regarding food inflation, the Food and Agriculture Organisation of the United Nations (7) states that
“The FAO Food Price Index averaged 129.8 points in February, a marginal 0.6- percent decrease from January but 18.7 percent down from its peak in March 2022. The decline in the index, which tracks monthly changes in the international prices of commonly-traded food commodities, reflected drops in quotations for vegetable oils and dairy products that more than offset a steep rise in sugar prices”.
So, real disposable incomes for poor households have not risen to match the raising trends from bills and prices. This is despite income support given to those who are eligible. This mismatch between their real incomes and rising prices and bills can only lead to falling real household disposable incomes.
Falling real household disposable incomes can be an impediment in the process of building forward. Given these context and impediment, how can we build forward?
• • • How to exactly build forward in the current context
Build Forward has here to be perceived from what the United Nations (8) argue about it, which is:
“Build Forward means not only that no one is left behind but that people living in poverty are actually encouraged and supported to be in the front, engaging in informed and meaningful participation in decision-making processes that directly affect their lives”.
We are going to refer to this definition to Build Forward Better Together Greener, Cleaner and Safer from the Damaging Impacts of the Cost-of-living Crisis. We will be doing it with the green, clean, inclusive and safe economies in our mind set.
This 2023 process of Building Forward Better Together Greener, Cleaner and Safer relates to the cost-of-living crisis. It has to be differentiated from the building process from the impact of the coronavirus pandemic. This is despite there are some similarities between the two processes.
Therefore, the theme for this Spring Relief 2023 is still “Build Forward Better Together Greener, Cleaner and Safer”, but within the context of Falling Real Household Disposable Incomes from the Damaging Impacts of the Cost-of-living Crisis.
The announcement of Spring Relief’s theme comes with that of projects and programmes making it or the notes composing this theme. We have provided under the Main Development section of this post a selection of projects and programmes which will make this Spring – Spring Relief season.
As we have just announced, it is a selection. Consequently, one should expect the introduction of new activities and the continuation of on-going initiatives like our All-year Round (or Triple Value) projects. That is also to say, there will be additional projects and programmes as we progress throughout this coming Spring season.
• Climate Action 3: Induce Carbon Markets to Be Part of Recovery from the Poly-crisis
The 3rd Climate Action is about persuading carbon markets to play an active part in regaining better condition from the simultaneous occurrence of several crises (energy, food, health, housing crisis, etc.). To conduct this 3rd Climate Action, we have organised the following notes:
σ Basic understanding of key terms for Climate Action 3
σ Being part of recovery from the poly-crisis
σ Carbon market inducements to inducement to lower greenhouse gas emissions and poverty
σ How CENFACS can work with the community and Africa-based Sister Organisations (ASOs) on the inducement of carbon markets.
• • Basic Understanding of Key Terms for Climate Action 3
This action is based on our understanding of these three words: inducement, recovery and poly-crisis. We have not included carbon markets because they have been explained in Climate Action 1.
a) Market inducement
Chambers Combined Dictionary Thesaurus (9) defines inducement as
“Something which is persuasive or which influences or encourages certain behaviour” (p. 650).
Using this dictionary definition, it is possible to persuade markets in which players (or emitters) are working with allowances of carbon emissions (or credits) to reduce greenhouse gas emissions, to play an active part in the recovery from the poly-crisis without making untrue statements.
You can induce brand loyalty; just as you can encourage players on the carbon markets to play their fair role in the recovery processes. This inducement should not be an end of itself. It should lead to poverty reduction.
b) Net-zero recovery
There are many ways of recovering from any crisis. The kind of recovery that is treated in Climate Action 3 is a phase in the business cycle following a economic depression; phase characterised by the picking up of demand, fall in stock levels while output and employment increase. The kind of recovery we are looking for in our Climate Action 3 is a net-zero greenhouse gas emissions one. This net-zero recovery is obtained by achieving a balance between the amount of greenhouse gas emissions produced and the amount removed from the atmosphere.
c) Poly-crisis
Introduced for the first time by Edgar Morin and Anne Brigitte Kern (10), poly-crisis means for the two co-authors the following:
“Interwoven and overlapping crises, complex inter-solidarity of problems, antagonisms, crises, uncontrollable processes, and the general crisis of the planet”.
After this introduction of poly-crisis in 1999, there have been many definitions relating to it. One of its definitions comes from the website ‘mcgregor-boycall.com’ (11) which states that
“Poly-crisis is the simultaneous occurrence of severe catastrophic events. Building on this most experts agree that it tends to refer specifically, not just to a situation where multiple crises are coinciding, but one where the crises become even more dangerous than each disaster or emergency on their own”.
The coronavirus pandemic has been a catastrophic disaster for the world; just as the cost-of-living crisis is a disaster for those living in poverty. This is without forgetting climate change events, which have become recurrent in recent years. These crises appear even more dangerous than each disaster or emergency on their own.
We are going to combine these key definitions or terms to conduct our Climate Action 3.
• • Being Part of Recovery from the Poly-crisis
To recover from the cost-of-living crisis, the lingering effects of the coronavirus disaster and climate catastrophe; it requires intervention or actions from many players. In that recovery process, carbon markets can be an effective part or contributor.
However, for these markets to be an effective part, it could demand some persuasive efforts to make towards those operating in these markets to occupy the places they deserve in the recovery from the poly-crisis. So, inducing these carbon markets to do their bit in the recovery from the poly-crisis can be a climate action to take this Season. This inducement can be at the levels of sellers, buyers, the product and price offered in these markets.
• • Carbon Market Inducements to Inducement to Lower Greenhouse Gas Emissions and Poverty
It is argued that carbon markets would accelerate actions to combat climate change and deliver much-needed co-benefits for nature and people. It will be good if the same action can result in poverty reduction.
Inducing carbon markets can help lower greenhouse gas emissions and poverty. It is possible to encourage markets in which carbon emission allowances are traded to assist in reducing poverty. It is feasible for companies limiting their emissions of carbon dioxide to also engage in the work of poverty reduction.
• • How CENFACS can Work with the Community and Africa-based Sister Organisations (ASOs) on the Inducement of Carbon Markets
Lifting people and ASOs beyond their everyday lives of poverty and helping them take stock of their difficult situation while connecting them to solutions to poverty will always be at the heart of CENFACS. In this lifting mission, we can work with them on inducing carbon markets to help them reduce poverty and hardships.
For ASOs and those members of our community who are interested in the third action of our Climate Action Month, action which is Induce Carbon Markets Be Part of Recovery from the Poly-crisis; they are welcome to contact CENFACS.
For any other queries and enquiries about CENFACS‘ Climate Action Month, the theme of ‘Making Carbon Markets Work for the Poor’ and the third climate action; please do not hesitate to contact CENFACS.
• Impact Monitoring and Evaluation of Phases A and B relating to the Building Process from the Coronavirus Impacts
In 2021, we set up a Build Forward Better Programme to help us in the process of coming out from the coronavirus pandemic crisis. Through this programme, beneficiaries would make steady progress in their journey and work of reconstruction from the COVID-19 impacts while preparing to stay resilient to future similar shocks and crises. What is Build-Forward-Better Programme?
Build Forward Better Programme is a set of projects and activities designed with the aim to ensure that the recovery from the COVID-19 pandemic sits on sound and sustainable foundations that build back better the poverty reduction gains hard-won so far and help beneficiaries to move forward better and greener.
The programme was scheduled for two years (March 2021 to March 2023) depending on the duration of the coronavirus pandemic, with a possibility of rolling it out. By the end of this March 2023, the programme will reach its planned end.
To enable us get the full extent of what this programme has enabled us so far to achieve, we are conducting Impact Monitoring and Evaluation of the two phases of this programme (Phases A and B).
For who may interested in this Impact Monitoring and Evaluation activity and would like to enquire about it, they should not hesitate to contact CENFACS.
Extra Messages
• Nature Projects and Nature-based Solutions to Poverty – Activity for Week Beginning 13/03/2023: Arts and Design Activity about Valuing Nature’s Contributions
• All-year Round Projects Cycle (Triple Value Initiatives Cycle) –Step/Workshop 4: Appraising your Play, Run and Vote Projects
• End-of-season Reminder!!!
The Polycrisis-impacted Children of East Africa Need Your Influence Right NOW
• Nature Projects and Nature-based Solutions to Poverty – Activity for Week Beginning 13/03/2023: Arts and Design Activity about Valuing Nature’s Contributions
There could be disputes over what is value and what is not value. Despite these disputes, it is right to argue that nature gives something valuable to humans/people. That something valuable can be anthropocentric, bio-physical, economic, good quality of life, etc. This is why one can speak about nature’s contributions to people. What do we mean by that?
• • Nature’s Contributions to People (NCP)
To understand NCP, let us refer to what the website ‘sciencedirect.com’ (12) says about it, which is:
“NCPs are all the positive contributions or benefits, and occasionally negative contributions, losses or detriments, that people obtain from nature. It resonates with the use of the term ecosystem services, and goes further by explicitly embracing concepts associated with other worldviews on human-nature relations and knowledge systems (e.g., nature’s gifts in many indigenous cultures)”.
One can refer to this definition to carry out arts and design activity showing how they value nature’s contributions in their life.
• • Arts and Design Activity about Valuing Nature’s Contributions
You can use your creative skills to create or draw the beauty of nature in giving to humans or yourself.
For example, you can draw and/or design the following:
~ part of your natural local park that help you to have a picnic, sunbathing or just to relax
~ the tomatoes plants or any food you grow in your garden
~ an area of African rainforest and how it is important as carbon sink for the humanity
~ animals’ habitat and how this habit can help in storing carbon and retaining soil
~ medical plants that help cure diseases
~ the river or channels that cross through the area you live or travel
etc.
The above are only the few amongst millions of ways of expressing your feelings in arts and design about nature’s contributions to your life. You can do it on paper or online or any other suitable means or formats.
Your art and design work can be an object or draw/design on paper or online or digital means. You can share your art and design work with CENFACS and others within the community.
• All-year Round Projects Cycle (Triple Value Initiatives Cycle) –
Step/Workshop 4: Appraising your Play, Run and Vote Projects
To carry out this step/workshop 4, we are going to briefly explain what this step/workshop is about and give an example about it.
• • About Appraising your Play, Run and Vote Projects
It is about assessing the feasibility, viability and potential impact of a proposed project. It means that an all-year-round project user will proceed with the following:
identify the project, screen it, scope it, analyse its market, technically study it as feasible, assess its financial viability and its economic impact, analyse risks, examine environmental and social impact and report its appraisal.
Because All-year Round Projects are such small and practical initiatives, there is a need to simply the appraisal relating to it. To simply the matter, we are going to limit to financial appraisal.
• • Example of Financial Appraisal: Your Project about Running for Poverty Reduction
Let say you want to run 4 km.
You have two options.
~ Option 1
You could simply get out your home start running without thinking of any financial appraisal.
~ Option 2
You can conduct a basic financial appraisal by asking yourself if you need to buy a bottle of water, a pair of trainers, a clock or watch to time yourself, the frequency of your run activity (e.g., once a week or every particular day of the week), decide whether you want run alone or as a group, etc.
You can even work out how much it costs to run in open space like a park compared to a close space such as a gym.
You can as well assess the benefit of running in terms of your health and general wellbeing.
In this second option, you can carry out more appraisal and come out with a sort of financial plan in terms of basic costs and benefits of running.
For those who would like to dive deeper into the appraisal of their Play or Run or Vote project, they should not hesitate to contact CENFACS.
• End-of-season Reminder!!!
The Polycrisis-impacted Children of East Africa Need Your Influence Right NOW
You can help halve poverty in East Africa; you can help halve poverty for and with children at risk of loosing their life because of the detrimental effects of the poly-crisis on them.
You can donate your Influence to halve poverty in East Africa.
To donate, please contact influential persons (or those having the keys) to reduce or solve the detrimental effects from the crises that the East African children are suffering from and make these persons reduce or end these negative effects on them.
You can as well influence the things or factors that determine these crises in order to create lasting favourable conditions towards an end to years-long crises, like the conflicts or economic crises in Ethiopia, Somalia and South Sudan.
Please also let CENFACS know about your influencing work or contribution you are or will be making and its outcome on behalf of the children or peoples of East Africa.
To let us know, you can contact CENFACS as follows:
*over phone
*via email
*through text
*by filling the contact form on this site.
On receipt of your message or influencing donation, CENFACS will contact you for record and thank you for any influencing donation made. However, should you wish your influencing support to remain anonymous; we will respect your wish.
There are only 7 days remaining for this Winter 2023 appeal.
For further details about this appeal/Gift of Light and or to support, go to http://cenfacs.org.uk/supporting-us/
Thank you in anticipation for your willingness to give your Positive Influence and help save the lives of the Polycrisis-impacted East African Children, especially but not exclusively those living in the polycrisis-affected areas of Ethiopia, Somalia and South Sudan.
Message in French (Message en français)
• Budget d’action pour le climat pour les ménages / familles
Un ménage ou une famille ordinaire peut déterminer quelle part de ses revenus peut être affectée à des dépenses pour l’action climatique. Le ménage ou la famille donnée peut planifier pendant une certaine période combien dépenser afin de réduire par exemple ses émissions de gaz à effet de serre.
Dans leur budget de dépenses d’action climatique, le ménage ou la famille peut planifier le montant dont il a besoin pour atteindre les objectifs climatiques suivants:
√ Encourager la réduction des émissions de gaz à effet de serre à l’intérieur
√ Adopter une énergie verte, sûre et propre (pour la cuisson et le chauffage)
√ Utiliser des appareils électriques efficaces
√ Comparer et contraster les combustibles fossiles à l’énergie durable en termes d’économie et de santé
Etc.
Pour plus d’efficacité, tous ces petits objectifs seront résumés dans un budget d’action pour le climat.
Ainsi, pour enrichir nos Journées d’action pour le climat, nous travaillerons sur les éléments du budget ménage/famille relatifs au climat et où des actions peuvent être prises au niveau du ménage/famille afin de réduire les enjeux climatiques (tels que la pollution de l’air intérieur).
Pour ceux/celles qui voudraient travailler avec le CENFACS sur le budget de leur ménage afin d’agir en faveur de la réduction des émissions de gaz à effet de serre, ils/elles sont plus que bienvenus pour contacter le CENFACS.
Main Development
• Spring Relief 2023: Rebuilding and Renewing Lives, Infrastructures and Institutions in the Context of Falling Real Household Disposable Incomes
To cover the contents of Spring Relief 2023, we have planned the following two items:
σ What is in focus for Spring Relief 2023?
σ Preview of Projects and Programmes for Spring Relief 2023.
Let us summarise each of these items.
• • What is in focus for Spring Relief 2023?
The focus is on the work to Build Forward Better Together Greener, Cleaner and Safer.
• • • Work to Build Forward Better Together Greener, Cleaner and Safer
The rolling out of another work to Build Forward Better Together Greener, Cleaner and Safer for this Spring 2023 is to deal with the continuing cost-of-living crisis. The first time we put in place Build Forward Better Together Programme was to work on ways of moving out from the coronavirus pandemic and its legacies.
The current work to Build Forward Better Together Greener, Cleaner and Safer has some similarities and differences with the one we applied to the coronavirus pandemic.
In both cases, if we are going to build forward together; we need to build a greener, cleaner and safer world so that future generations will not have the fulfilment of their needs compromises. In other words, we need to adopt green, clean and safe pathways for poverty reduction and net-zero carbon emissions development.
The difference between the two is that Build Forward Better Together Programme for the coronavirus pandemic focussed on health and economic crises. Contrariwise, the Work to Build Forward Better Together relating to the cost-of-living crisis will concentrate on prices and incomes crises; that is the cost of living crisis. The cost of living here has to be understood as defined in Collins Dictionary of Business written by Christopher Pass et al. (op. cit.) in these terms:
“Cost of living is the general level of prices of goods and services in an economy as measured by a representative PRICE-INDEX” (p. 143)
We cannot ignore the contexts in which we need to build forward. The current context is of the cost-of-living crisis. It is in this context of the cost-of-living crisis that we will try to build forward during this Spring 2023.
So, during this Spring Relief 2022 CENFACS is going to work with the community in the UK and organisations in Africa to build forward better together from the collateral damages generated by the cost-of-living crisis. There have been asymmetrical or uneven distributional effects from this crisis. Those living in poverty are the ones bearing the brunt of this crisis.
This Spring 2023 Building forward better, which is a new roll-out, is about correcting the asymmetrical effects from the cost-of-living crisis since many of our community members have been unevenly hurt during this crisis.
In order to build forward better, one needs a programme or a strategy or a roadmap. This is why we are rolling out this second type of Build Forward Better Together Work. To deliver this seasonal work, one needs as well a set of activities during the work’s lifespan.
This work to Build Forward Better Together Work is part of our Campaign to End Poverty Induced by Rising Costs of Living.
• • • Campaign to End Poverty Induced by Rising Costs of Living
Campaign to End Poverty Induced by Rising Costs of Living is one of the legacies of CENFACS Starting IX Projects from Autumn 2022.
The Campaign to End Poverty Linked to Rising Costs of Living is an organised series of actions to gain support for the cost-of-living poor so that something can be done for them. These actions need to result in change, particularly the reduction and end of poverty led by the cost-of-living crisis. The latter is now a barrier for many poor.
It takes a long time for a crisis like the current cost-of-living crisis to end. Because of that, it is better to have short-, medium- and long-term actions; actions that can stemmed from a strategy to end crisis.
During this coming Spring 2023, we shall work to Build Forward Better Together Greener, Cleaner and Safer from the damaging effects of the cost-of-living crisis, while Campaigning to End Poverty Induced by Rising Costs of Living.
• • Preview of Projects and Programmes for Spring Relief 2023
CENFACS is pleased to present its New Season’s (Spring) collection of selected projects and programmes with a choice of relief and climate smart services. For each of these projects and programmes, you will find climate resilient development ambition as well as user-friendly and –centred relief. They are designed with the scents of inclusivity, safety and sustainability.
These are the projects and programmes to rebuild lives, infrastructures and institutions as we move forward better together greener, cleaner and safer towards a net-zero world. They are free but we do not mind donations. The more you donate, the more we can relieve.
Please find below the selection of Spring Relief 2023 Projects and Programmes.
• • • April: Protection Month
There will be two initiatives to deliver and sustain protection in April 2023:
Geo-economic Protection and Security for Women and Children, and Protection against Falling Real Household Disposable Incomes.
a) Women and Children Projects (3W & PPS Reflection Day):
Reflection on Geo-economic Protection and Security for Women and Children (Protection project)
On our Reflection Day, we will reflect on the crisis and risk linked to interstate economic confrontations and rivalries in recent years and how they could lead to geo-economic warfare. These rivalries, if they escalate, can pose concern about protection and security vulnerabilities for many people, especially but not exclusively for women and children living in poverty.
Our Reflection Day will try to look at ways of protecting and securing women and children from increasing geo-economic clashes and the proliferation of new geo-economic weaponization in the new protection and security contexts.
Additionally, we shall reflect on the effects of the geo-economic conflicts on our network and system of protection in the process of building forward better together greener, cleaner and safer.
b) Protection against Falling Real Household Disposable Incomes (Protection and Income project)
Prices and bills keep on raising while real household disposable incomes have failed to match this raising trend. In other words, incomes are not fully index-linked to keep pace with inflation and living standards unchanged. There is a need to protect falling real household disposable incomes.
• • • May: Stories Telling Month
The plan for May 2023 is made two main features:
Stories Telling and Sharing project, and the continuation of our Rebuilding Africa project/campaign.
a) All in Development Stories (Volunteer’s Stories Telling & Sharing project)
Tell your Story of Building Forward Better from the Cost-of-living Crisis – Tell it!
Entries for Stories on Poverty Relief and Development for May 2023 (May Stories) are now open. To tell and share your story of change for change to CENFACS, please contact CENFACS for story telling terms and conditions.
This year’s All in Development Stories will be about how people and communities are trying or have tried to build forward better from the cost-of-living crisis.
This year’s stories are those of:
∝ reduction of endemic structural disadvantages and inequalities
∝ positively transforming our relationship with nature
∝ dismantling structures of discrimination disadvantaging the poor
∝ building on the moral and legal framework of human rights that places human dignity at the heart of policy and action.
They are the tales of physical, social, environmental and economic building forward better.
b) Rebuilding Africa: Build Forward Better with Communities and Africa-based Organisations (Advocacy programme)
There will two areas in our advocacy to rebuild Africa, which are as follows.
b.1) Building Forward Better Together with Communities and Africa-based Sister Organisations (ASOs) will be based on wellbeing economy, inclusiveness and safety to manage the struggle to come out of the cost-of-living crisis. It is about advocating to manage struggle.
b.2) Building Forward Better Together with Communities and ASOs will be about navigating their ways to improve in those areas where the cost-of-living crisis has brought a new window of opportunities and scope to learn and develop. It is an advocacy work to go beyond struggle and plan future.
• • • June: Creation & Innovation Month
Creation and innovation are needed to manage the struggle against the cost-of-living since prices of energy and food started to rise from March 2022. Likewise, to build forward better, creation and innovation should be the response.
This June, we shall deal with creations and innovations that help that struggle as well as those that help manage the period of struggle against the cost-of-living crisis.
a) Creations and Innovations to manage the struggle against the cost-of-living crisis (Creation and Innovation project)
Forming from nothing ideas or introducing changes to manage struggle against the cost-of-living crisis and move forward together will be the main activity during the month of June 2023. These creative ideas and innovative ways of working will enable to find the means to meet the level of ambition we have for the kind of sustainable development and future we want.
Using our skills, knowledge and talents to find techniques, technologies and new methods to deal with the currently pressing and immediate needs of the cost-of-living crisis period may not be enough unless we create and innovate to prevent or at least to mitigate future crises. It means there could be another need to bring into existence ideas and introduce changes and new methods to address future crises if they happen when they happen.
b) Creations and Innovations to deal with falling real household disposable incomes (Creation and Innovation project)
The current fall in real household disposable incomes means that one needs to find some creative and innovative ways of dealing with this fall if one wants to avoid the deepening of income poverty. It also means one may work out to develop an alternative in terms of ideas, skills and new knowledge to meet the income needs of those who are unable to raise or earn incomes beyond the income poverty line.
The above summarises the programmes, projects and activities we have planned to deliver this coming Spring. To request further information about Spring Relief 2023 Projects and Programmes, please contact CENFACS.
Note:
The above initiatives are only a selection of what we have planned for Spring Relief season 2023. We may introduce new initiatives and or upgrade the existing ones depending on the circumstances as we have from time to time to respond to emergencies and urgent humanitarian issues like we did with the sanitary crisis, COVID-19, and we may do it with the cost-of-living crisis crisis. In which case, we shall let you know.
Also, in every work we do to try to help reduce poverty, there is always a cost to bear. If you could help alleviate some of our costs, we would more acknowledge your support than just appreciate your gesture.
_________
• References
(1) Pass, C., Lowes, B., Pendleton, A. & Chadwick, L. (1991), Collins Dictionary of Business, HarperCollinsPublishers, Glasgow
(2) https://www.tutor2u.net/economics/blog/s-macro-key-term-real-disposable-income (Accessed in March 2023)
(3) https://www.finder.com/uk/disposable-income-around-the-uk# (Accessed in March 2023
(4) https://www.resolutionfoundation.org/publications/new-years-outlook-2023/ (Accessed in March 2023)
(5) https://www.ons.gov.uk/economy/inflationandpriceindices (Accessed in March 2023)
(6) https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy/the-interest-rate-bank-rate (Accessed in March 2023)
(7) https://www.fao.org/newsroom/detail/fao-food-price-index-declines-for-the-11th-consecutive-marth/en (Accessed in March 2023)
(8) https://www.un.org/en/desa/it-time-build-forward-together# (Accessed in March 2023)
(9) Chambers Combined Dictionary Thesaurus, Manser, M. & Thompson, M. (eds.), Chambers Harrap Publishers Ltd, 1999
(10) Morin, E. and Kern, A. B. (1999),Homeland Earth: A Manifesto for a New Millennium. Advances in Systems Theory, Complexity, and the Human Sciences. Cresskill, N.J.: Hampton Press
(11) https://www.mcgregor-boycall.com/our-thinking-library/2023/02/what-is-a-polycrisis-why-is-everyone-talking-about-it-and-how-could-it-affect-your-business//357# (Accessed in March 2023)
(12) https://www.sciencedirect.com/science/article/pii/S1877343517300040# (Accessed in March 2023)
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• Help CENFACS keep the Poverty Relief work going this year
We do our work on a very small budget and on a voluntary basis. Making a donation will show us you value our work and support CENFACS’ work, which is currently offered as a free service.
One could also consider a recurring donation to CENFACS in the future.
Additionally, we would like to inform you that planned gifting is always an option for giving at CENFACS. Likewise, CENFACS accepts matching gifts from companies running a gift-matching programme.
Donate to support CENFACS!
FOR ONLY £1, YOU CAN SUPPORT CENFACS AND CENFACS’ NOBLE CAUSES OF POVERTY REDUCTION.
JUST GO TO: Support Causes – (cenfacs.org.uk)
Thank you for visiting CENFACS website and reading this post.
Thank you as well to those who made or make comments about our weekly posts.
We look forward to receiving your regular visits and continuing support throughout 2023 and beyond.
With many thanks.
