Welcome to CENFACS’ Online Diary!
12 April 2023
Post No. 295
The Week’s Contents
• Holiday with Relief – In Focus for Spring 2023 Issue: Finance for Holiday
• Protection Month – In Discussion for Week Beginning Monday 10/04/2023: Income Protection from Statutory Bodies
• Goal of the Month: Reduction of Poverty as a Lack of Income Protection
… And much more!
Key Messages
• Holiday with Relief – In Focus for Spring 2023 Issue: Finance for Holiday
The Spring 2023 Issue our ICDP (individual Capacity Development Programme) Resource entitled as ‘Holiday with Relief’ is out now. This Issue is an ultimate guide to fund and survive the Holiday Spending Season while contributing to avoiding financial stress during holiday.
This year, ‘Holiday with Relief’ provides wealthy advice, tips and hints linked to finance for holiday. Within this wealth of information contained in this Issue, there are tips and hints that can be used to deal with holiday poverty.
These tips and hints are meant to support those of our users and non-users who may experience some difficulties in raising the finance they need in order to cover their holiday budget (that is; Easter holiday budget, work or school holiday budget and long Summer holiday budget).
This resource is packed with Spring-relieving ideas about how to reduce holiday poverty. Although we are already in Easter holiday, the resource is still relevant for the rest of Easter holiday and can be used as a reference for future holidays.
Under the Main Development section of this post, we have provided the content summaries about the key advice, tips and hints provided. To enquire about the full 2023 Issue of Holiday with Relief, please contact CENFACS.
• Protection Month – In Discussion for Week Beginning Monday 10/04/2023: Income Protection from Statutory Bodies
Normally, statutory bodies like the Government provide protection to their people as part of their regal duty. This protection is what is stated by the United Nations Office for the Coordination of Humanitarian Affairs (1), which is:
“Protection encompasses all activities aimed at ensuring full respect for the rights of the individual in accordance with human rights law, international humanitarian law (which applies in situations of armed conflict) and refugee law”.
Statutory bodies can also provide income protection to those who are eligible according to the criteria or terms and conditions determined by themselves. Under the entitlement or means-tested criteria, the UK Government (as well as devolved government and local authorities in the UK) can provide income protection to those who need it. This income protection benefit can includes statutory sick pay or benefits for people who are sick or disabled. What kinds of income protection these people can ask for?
We are going to answer this question through the following items:
a) Types of income protection for benefit claimants
b) Practices and experiences of income protection creation ad innovation
c) Working with the community on Income Protection provided by Statutory Bodies.
Let us summarise each of these items.
• • Types of circumstances leading to income protection benefit claims
On the website of ‘citizensadvice.org.uk’ (2), it states that income protection seekers can claim benefits in the following circumstances:
~ If they have difficulty with everyday tasks or getting around
~ If they can’t work because they’re sick or disabled
~ If they are on a low income or they have no income.
• • Types of income protection benefits to claim
To the above-mentioned types of circumstances are related certain types of benefit.
If you have difficulty with everyday tasks or getting around, you can for example claim Personal Independence Payment if you are 16 or over and haven’t reached State Pension age.
If you can’t work because you are sick or disabled, you can for example apply for Employment and Support Allowance if your Statutory Sick Pay has ended.
If you are on a low income or you have no income, you can for example get Universal Credit.
Those in need of income protection can check the type of benefits relating to their circumstance at citizensadvice.org.uk. For those who need help to check them, CENFACS can assist them. Within each of these circumstances, there are types of income protection that people experiencing these circumstances can claim. They can apply for the benefit related to their circumstance to Government income protection benefit agencies. Beyond that income protection can be created and innovated.
• • Practices and experiences of income protection creation ad innovation
Like in the UK, there are many parts of the world that try to create and innovate income protection. For example, in Europe there is a minimum income (3) which is ‘cash payments that help households who need it to bridge the gap to a certain income level to pay the bills and live a life in dignity’. Likewise, there is what the World Bank (4) called universal basic income which is ‘a transfer that is provided universally, unconditionally, and in cash’. Additionally, in some countries in Africa there have been direct dividend transfers of part of the money form the sale of oils, gas and minerals to the people, amongst them the poor ones. Many of these transfers have been facilitated by the introduction of digital technologies to deliver fast and cheap income protection support.
Furthermore, during the coronavirus disaster many governments around the world including the UK Government created and innovated income protection by providing income protection to those who needed to cope with the enormous pressure and life-threatening impact of the disaster. In Africa, governments put in place social and income protection and tax-benefit measures as well as cushioned against income losses to respond to the crisis. Currently, the UK Government is subsiding the cost of energy for those households who cannot afford the soaring price of energy, as result of the cost-of-living crisis.
These examples and many more show that income protection can be created and innovated. However, what is needed is long term solutions to income protection poverty. Part of these solutions could be to research and innovate in terms of the links between income protection and inflation, between income protection and pensions, between income protection and minimum wage, etc. In that process of searching for new solutions to income protection poverty, there is a need to work with the income protection poor people.
• • Working with the community on Income Protection Provided by Statutory Bodies
There is a number of ways that CENFACS can work with the members of its community to enhance their protection by accessing or improving the way they are trying to access income protection provided by the Government and or local authorities. Amongst these ways of working with the members of our community to enhance their protection include the following:
√ Providing basic financial advice about the types of income protection benefit they can apply for and relating to their degree of eligibility
√ Making income protection benefit enquiries on their behalf
√ Supporting them to make an application and apply online
√ Signposting them to specialists in income protection benefit
√ Organising a drop-in sessions about income protection benefit
√ Running small and targeted income protection clinics for those in need
√ Helping them fill income protection benefit forms
√ Running a referral service on income protection matters for them
√ Advocating their income protection cases to services and organisations where they could be eligible
√ Keeping them informed, guided and updated about any changes in income protection benefit legislations
√ Translating and interpreting income protection benefit documents or materials
√ Motivating them to become independent from income protection benefit as a long term solution
Etc.
The above are just some of ways CENFACS could support the community regarding income protection benefit matter. Part of support services or products is the basic financial advice product/service we can offer in terms of income protection.
Those who need help and support about basic financial advice on income protection and/or for any of the matters listed above falling within our capacity, they can contact CENFACS. Those who may enquiry for any other income protection issue that is not listed above, they can still check with CENFACS if there could be any help.
• Goal of the Month: Reduction of Poverty as a Lack of Income Protection
Each month, we set up a poverty reduction goal to meet. For this month, our goal is to reduce poverty as a lack of income protection.
• • Poverty as a Lack of Income Protection
The lack of income protection can be seen as an expression of poverty. Those who have no income or not enough income to shield themselves from danger or cover against loss of money or keep themselves safe, can be seen as being poor. They are poor because they cannot organise their own protection, which is a basic life-sustaining goods for any human beings. So, reducing this type of poverty is not simply an act of filling income gaps. It is instead a matter of meeting a human fundamental need. Meeting such need can help tackling inequality and vulnerability that could have been created or exacerbated by the lack of income protection.
• • Reduction of Poverty as a Lack of Income Protection
There are ways of reducing poverty as a lack of income protection. In practical terms, it means working with income protection poor to access or acquire income protection insurance. For those income protection poor who are eligible to benefit, help could mean for them accessing and having their benefit claims or applications processed, accepted and income benefits granted to them. For those income protection poor in employment, support could be about bridging the gap in income protection insurance. In all, it is about making sure that the income protection poor are fully insured like others.
So, the above is our goal for the month which we hope will be shared by our supporters and audiences. We therefore expect our supporters and audiences to work on this goal of the month by supporting those who may be suffering from poverty expressed as a lack of income protection.
For further details on the Goal of the Month and its selection procedure including its support, please contact CENFACS.
Extra Messages
• Help CENFACS Fight Together with You Poverty Induced by the Cost-of-Living Crisis this Spring Season
• All-year Round Projects Cycle (Triple Value Initiatives Cycle) – Step/Workshop 8: Monitoring Your Play, Run and Vote Projects
• Spring Project of Building Forward Better from Reinforcing Shocks in Africa (SPBFBRSA)
• Help CENFACS Fight Together with You Poverty Induced by the Cost-of-Living Crisis this Spring Season
You can donate or pledge or make a gift aid declaration to help CENFACS’ in its Charitable Response to the Cost-of-Living Crisis (CRCLC).
CRCLC is supporters’ contribution via CENFACS to the current effort to fight the cost-of-living crisis.
Any of the donations, pledges and gifts given will help those adversely impacted by the cost-of-living crisis.
To support, just contact CENFACS by quoting or asking for the Charitable Response to the Cost-of-Living Crisis (CRCLC).
Thank you!
• All-year Round Projects Cycle (Triple Value Initiatives Cycle) – Step/Workshop 8: Monitoring Your Play, Run and Vote Projects
To count what is happening and happened to your Play, Run and Vote Projects, you need to monitor and track them. Monitors or trackers will help you to do that.
• • What is monitoring your Play, Run and Vote Projects about?
It is the step during which you regularly observe and record the activities of your Play, Run and Vote Projects. As part of this process, you will routinely and regularly collect information about the outcome of all aspects of your Play, Run and Vote Projects as the theory of monitoring suggests. The monitoring exercise will help you to check your progress against your project plans. You can plan specific dates for your project progression monitoring. If your Play, Run and Vote Projects involve other participants; then you can ask them to tell you what they think about the projects.
• • Example of monitoring your All-year Round Projects
Let say you want to monitor your Run to Reduce Poverty in Africa. To monitor it, you will need…
~ to cover all the activities making your Run
~ to find out what all the participants think about your project
~ to know who take part in the run, their number and the frequency of their participation
~ to find the met and unmet needs
~ to identify the problems you encounter in the process of running your project
~ to figure out the resources needed for the project and the costs of running it
etc.
You need as well to keep all the records about the project and ask for the comments from anyone who gets involved with your Run Project. You can do it on an outcome-monitoring sheet for effectiveness in the way you are collecting and keeping record. An outcome-monitoring sheet can include any skills, any improvement in motivation and aspirations, any boost in confidence and self-esteem, etc. that you or your participants have gained or increased as a result of your project.
You need to record changes and effects as they happen. You can keep notes of any success and failure about your project, the numbers of people involved in it and the numbers of those who benefited.
Please remember to make sure that the records you are keeping and the notes you are taking will help you to decide who is your Runner of Poverty Reduction in Africa 2023.
For those who would like to dive deeper into Monitoring their Play or Run or Vote project, they should not hesitate to contact CENFACS.
• Spring Project of Building Forward Better from Reinforcing Shocks in Africa (SPBFBRSA)
SPBFBRSA is a way of working with the victims of a series of severe and mutually reinforcing shocks (like the lingering effects of the coronavirus disaster, the cost-of-living crisis, debt tightening, natural disasters, etc.) in Africa so that they can navigate their way towards the reduction or possibly end of the effects of these shocks on them. It is also about Saving, Rebuilding and Sustaining Lives of the victims from these shocks, disasters and destructions in Africa.
SPBFBRSA is after all about adding value to other similar works and efforts which have been already undertaken so that the poorest people and victims of these shocks can start or continue the process of building forward and reclaiming their lives while Africa is still embattled against these shocks.
You can find more details about the Spring Project of Building Forward Better from the Reinforcing Shocks in Africa under the page support causes at http://cenfacs.org.uk/supporting-us/
To support and get further information about this project, just contact CENFACS.
Message in French (Message en français)
• Plan d’action pour la mise en œuvre de la protection en avril 2023
Pour mettre en œuvre la protection en avril 2023, nous avons sélectionné quatre notes clés, qui sont données dans le tableau ci-dessous.
Ces notes seraient élaborées à compter de tous les lundis d’avril 2023, comme prévu ci-dessus.
Pour plus de détails sur ces notes, veuillez contacter le CENFACS.
Main Development
• Holiday with Relief –
In Focus for Spring 2023 Issue: Finance for Holiday
Wondering how to finance your holiday and/or have a debt free holiday? You have come to the right place as the following contents, tips and hints highlight it:
∝ What is Holiday with Relief (HwR)?
∝ What is the Focus for this Year’s HwR?
∝ For Whom this Resource is Designed
∝ Reduction of Holiday Poverty
∝ Holiday Plan and Budget
∝ Ways of Financing Your Holiday
∝ Needing Help and Support to Finance Your Holiday.
Let us summarise these contents.
• • Content Summaries, Tips and Hints about Spring 2023 Holiday with Relief
• • • What is Holiday with Relief?
Holiday with Relief (HwR) is an awareness, preparedness and solutions focussed Resource to Manage Information over holidays (e.g. Easter and Summer holidays).
As an Information Manager, HwR is a set of life-changing tips and tricks to help and enable vulnerably unaware people to plan and have their holiday or break with confidence in taking into account all aspects of life and by making sure that key areas of those life aspects are not adversely affected.
• • • What is the Focus for this Year’s HwR?
The focus for HwR for this year is on Finance for Holiday. It is about providing a set of life-enhancing tips and hints to support those who are looking for simple but practical advice to fund their holiday plan and budget without getting into a holiday debt which they cannot afford.
• • • For Whom this Resource is Designed
This resource is primarily designed for the CENFACS Community members and those related to them.
The resource also caters for the following:
√ Those who are looking for some basic ideas about how to build holiday fund
√ Those who are searching for holiday funding schemes and programmes
√ Those who are willing to create affordable holiday plan and budget
√ Those having a high sensitivity of budget share to their household income
√ Disabled people and their carers
√ Those looking to raise money for their holiday trips
√ Those wanting to fund their respite break as disabled persons and their carers
√ Anyone interested in funding for holiday.
• • • Reduction of Holiday Poverty
This Spring Season, we shall find ways of working with the members of our community who are likely to face holiday poverty because of various circumstances but in particular due to the lack of means to enjoy a decent holiday, whether they stay at home or are away from their home. We hope that working together with them will help them avoid holiday poverty trap or to exacerbate it.
Through this wealth of information contained in the ‘Holiday with Relief’, we will try together to tackle holiday poverty or poverty linked to the lack of means to enjoy a decent holiday whether at home or away from home.
• • • Holiday Plan and Budget
The starting point to plan your holiday is to have a plan for your holiday and a budget for it.
Regarding your holiday plan, you need to include the following: where to go if not staying at home, when to go, how to go, who to go with, where to stay, what to do, what to eat, when to return, etc.
Concerning your holiday budget, the theory recommends to take inventory or stock of last year’s holiday accounts. In practice, you will use your last year’s holiday expenses and divide them by 12 to obtain the monthly amount of saving or spending you need to budget for the next holiday. However, you should bear in mind that there are economic factors (like changes in interest rate, exchange rate, the cost of living, the cost of holidaying, etc. ) you should include when working your numbers. You budget will be adjusted for these factors. You could as well use an online holiday budget calculator to do it for you.
• • • Ways of Financing Your Holiday
Financing any holiday for those on low income can be nightmare and sometimes unachievable dream. However, for those of them who may have the right information and knowledge to finance their holiday according to their means and conditions of life, this dream can come true. The right information and knowledge can stem from ways of financing holiday.
Here are the ways of financing your holiday:
√ Setting money aside (Putting savings towards your holiday goals)
(It is about knowing how much money you need to put aside to cover your next holiday. The problem with this option is that poor people and families do not have money to set aside for holiday)
√ Finding extra money in your budget (for instance, by trimming expenses)
√ Employers’ holiday pay schemes
(For example, in the UK employment rules state that when an employee or worker takes holiday, they should get the same pay when they are on holiday as when they are at work – whichever their working pattern)
√ Finding cheapest holiday deals can help you save money
√ Crowdfunding by raising money from friends and family members
√ Applying for free school meals to fund your children food holiday
√ Attending free activities organised by local charities during holiday
√ Free trips for families funded by charities, local groups and churches
√ Free family day trips to a variety of destinations like zoos, farm parks, theme parks, the seaside or the theatre
√ Holiday loans which will not advise especially for income poor people and families as holiday loans may not be positive coping strategies for them to deal with holiday income poverty
√ Funding holiday as identified need by your local authority
√ A need for a holiday arising from disabilities under the provision of holidays
(i.e., local authorities can be under a duty to meet the need of a holiday by funding the cost of the holiday)
√ Holiday funding for disabled adults and their carers
(For example, there are organisations like Revitalise.co.uk that offer disability holiday funding support for respite and accessible holidays)
Etc.
The above-mentioned options to fund your holiday can be used by those who need them. The best thing to do is to check their eligibility and suitability criteria. For those members of our community who may experience some difficulties in dealing with these ways of financing their holiday, CENFACS can work with them to identify the option that is suitable for them. In this identification, we shall make sure that they find positive coping strategies to fund their holiday.
• • • Needing Help and Support to Finance Your Holiday
CENFACS can work with the members of its community to find ways of financing their holiday. We can guide them/you to find financial help for holidaying. We can arrange for them/you to speak to specialists around funding holiday for vulnerable people. We can as well signpost them/you to organisations offering holiday funding service to those in need.
Additionally, there are charities and voluntary organisations that can help around holiday matters such as
∝ paying for a holiday via financial support for holidays
∝ finding the right holiday for families with a member with a chronic condition
∝ finding a break and or respite.
Amongst these organisations are the Family Fund, Turn2Us, Happy Days Children’s Charity, Revitalise, etc.
We hope that the above content summaries will provide a succinct idea about this year’s Issue of Holiday with Relief. For those users who would like to dive into Finance for Holiday, we can provide them with online and print resources (e.g., a list of organisations providing holidaying support for those in need) relating to Finance for Holiday.
To support Finance for Holiday and get the full Spring 2023 Issue of ICDP Resource (Holiday with Relief), please contact CENFACS.
_________
• References
(1) https://www.unocha.org/Sites/dms/Documents/120405%20ooM%Protection%20final%20draft.pdf (Accessed in April 2023)
(2) https://www.citizensadvice.org.uk/benefits/sick-or-disabled-people-and-carers/benefits-for-people-who-are-sick-or-disabled/ (Accessed in April 2023)
(3) https://ec.europa.eu/commission/presscorner/detail/en/ip_22_5706 (Accessed in April 2023)
(4) https://www.worldbank.org/en/topic/socialprotection/publication/exploring-universal-basic-income-a-guide-to-navigating-concepts-evidence-and-practices# (Accessed in April 2023)
_________
• 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.
