Welcome to CENFACS’ Online Diary!
03 September 2025
Post No. 420
Welcome back Message
Before starting the contents of the blog and post of this first Wednesday of September 2025, we would like to welcome back all those who are returning this month.
It is a pleasure to welcome the following again:
∝ Our users, project beneficiaries, supporters, members, representatives of Africa-based Sister Organisations, followers, audiences and other stakeholders who came back from Summer break and school holiday
∝ Those who are or have been working during the Summertime
∝ Those who lost touch with us for various reasons and would like to come back.
This welcoming back message also applies to those using or helping or supporting our UK and Africa Development programmes.
Welcome back to all of you for a happy, healthy and good return!
The Week’s Contents
• Back-to-poverty-relief Programme 2025: Programme for Pre-autumn Season 2025
• Goal of the Month: Reduction of Back-to-school Poverty in 2025
• Activity/Task 9 of the Restoration (‘R’) Year and Project: Help People Find Their Own Restoration Answers
… And much more!
Key Messages
The key message from our weekly communication and menu, which is often made of three courses, is as follows.
• Back-to-poverty-relief Programme 2025: Programme for Pre-autumn Season 2025
To smooth the understanding of this key message, let us briefly explain back-to-poverty-relief programme, September as advice- and guidance-giving month within CENFACS, the particularity of this year’s programme, the potential beneficiaries of this programme, and the possible needs of these beneficiaries.
• • What Is Back-to-poverty-relief Programme?
Back-to-poverty-relief Programme is a set of related activities and services prepared with an aim of reducing poverty (particularly back-to-school poverty but not exclusively) amongst multi-dimensional poor children, young and families (MDPCYPFs) by working with them to meet their needs after summer break and/or school holiday so that they can start September 2025 without or with less hardship. The programme focuses on addressing the specific challenges faced by MDPCYPFs, in doing so helping them to thrive and improve their living conditions.
Key aspects of the programme include addressing life-sustaining basic needs, the costs of living and learning, access to services, economic opportunities, targeted back-to-poverty-relief assistance, and sustainable solutions.
The programme is made of a number of supportive elements like the following:
Capacity and skills development, advice, advocacy, translation, information, guidance, support to child educational needs in Africa, signposting, etc.
The programme is generally run around September and can be extended to October depending on the needs and demand in the community and available resources.
• • September: Advice- and Guidance-giving Month
We run Advice service as part of our activities throughout the year. However, Advice is CENFACS’ main theme in September and in the back-to-school season. Because of that, it is more pronounced in September and the back-to-school season compared to other months of the year. In other words, we invest more resources in advice and guidance in September than at any other times of the year.
We provide generalist advice to both individuals and organisations as mentioned above. We also give specialist advice on matters relating to the fields of poverty reduction and Africa’s development.
Where both individuals and organisations need specialist advice in other matters than poverty reduction or Africa’s development, we guide them. We can as well signpost beneficiaries to other organisations/individuals providing specialist advice if beneficiaries’ request for advice is beyond or outside our advice capacity and resources.
Advice and Guidance can be given in the context of Back-to-poverty-relief Programme and outside this context. When Advice and Guidance are given in the context of Back-to-poverty-relief Programme, they become constituent part of this programme like other elements making this programme.
The programme is particular in its kind as it targets certain types of returnees and what these returnees may need.
• • The Particularity of This Year’s Programme
Every September we try to redesign this programme so that it can respond to the needs of the time while taking into account what happened in the past and what may happen in the near future. The Back-to-poverty-relief 2025 programme is designed to include the needs of these returnees. It is also conceptualised to anticipate any changes of economic situation.
Our Back-to-poverty-relief 2025 programme will be delivered in the current context of the UK economy; context in which the current bank rate is 4% (1), the current inflation rate is 4.2% which is calculated based on CPI (consumer prices index) values for the last 12 months ending in July 2025 (2), from 1 October 2025 to December 2025 the price of energy for a typical household who use electricity and gas and pay by Direct Debit will go up by 2% to £1,755 per year (3).
These three indicators (that is, the bank rate, consumer prices index and energy price) affect or will affect the real household disposable income and the cost of living. In terms of minimum income, the website ‘leveragedev.co.uk’ (4) states that
“The Minimum Income Calculator suggests a couple with no children needs about £39,444 combined to maintain a modest yet decent living standard…Recent Office for National Statistics data places that median disposable figure at £32,300 – lower than the mean, but often a more realistic checkpoint for self-evaluation”.
The website ‘leveragedev.co.uk’ adds that
“According to the most recent release from the Office for National Statistics [in the UK] covering June to August 2025: Average weekly pay (before tax) is £693 and average weekly pay (after tax) is £648. If you work full-time all 52 weeks, that weekly figure translates to roughly £36,036 gross per year. After tax your take-home pay sits just under £29,500 – about £2,453 a month”.
Regarding the cost of living in the UK, the website ‘movingtotheuk.co.uk’ (5) mentions that
“As of mid-2025, the average UK household spends approximately £2,250 per month, with the following breakdown: For single adults, average monthly expenses (including rent) range between £1,500 and £1,900, depending on lifestyle and location”.
The above-mentioned figures have been considered in the design of our Back-to-poverty-relief 2025 programme. We have also factorised and will consider in this programme other events (like the lingering effects of the polycrises, changing climate, etc.). This year’s programme has been specifically designed to take account of all these indicators, metrics and events.
• • Types of Returnees Who May Need This Year’s Programme
At the end of this Summer 2025 and during this September, we may have five types of returnees, who are:
√ MDPCYPFs who already planned what they want to do and how they will continue to manage the above-mentioned indicators and their other aspects of life
√ MDPCYPFs who already planned their start of September and the end of Summer 2025, but they may need some help to carry on with their plan or family project
√ MDPCYPFs who could not plan because they could be overwhelmed by the impact of these factors/indicators or poverty and may need advice or guidance in terms of coping strategies during this September
√ MDPCYPFs struggling with back-to-school transitions and change from Summer holiday to school return
√ MDPCYPFs who need transitionary skills and transitioning back-to-school programme to adjust to life cycle transition
√ MDPCYPFs who need restoration skills to restore their lives and or things to embrace back-to-school events in a frictionless way.
• • What These Returnees May Need
Because we are dealing with MDPCYPFs, who are supposed to be poor or in need, they could ask for some support in the form of information, advice and guidance to cope or manage their back-to-school problems.
They could even require further advisory support during this September as many of them would face the pressure linked to the end of Summer and the start of Autumn, in particular those families having to deal with the financial pressure of the start of the new academic year for their children.
They need advice and guidance to cope with poverty in which they are already living, to deal with the on-going cost-of-living crisis and the financial pressure to send back to school their children for those having children at schooling age. This is why we have assembled and blended activities and services (that is; the Back-to-poverty-relief Programme) to work with them.
For more details on CENFACS’ Back-to-poverty-relief Programme 2025, please read the details under Main Development section of this post.
• Goal of the Month: Reduction of Back-to-school Poverty in 2025
Our goal for the month of September 2025 is the reduction of back-to-school poverty. To deliver this goal, we need to understand it and work with those who may likely experience back-to-school poverty.
• • What Is Back-to-school Poverty?
Back-to-school poverty refers to the inability to afford the educational requirements of the start of the new school year. It is the incapability or incapacity for parents and carers to meet the basic life-sustaining needs of the education for their children in terms of purchasing school-related items (such as uniforms, clothes, books, electronics, digital resources, etc.) and providing the basic infrastructures and necessities (whether it is at home or outside) to support the education of their children.
This situation can exacerbate existing inequalities with children from disadvantaged backgrounds experiencing negative impacts on their attendance, concentration, and overall educational attainment.
This incapacity can include other expenses that compete against or with educational materials; expenses that are school fees, living expenses to start a new school year, transport cost to travel to schools, food, a place to study at home, family relocation expenses, adequate meal to study, a proper bed to sleep well, health costs, basic healthcare and hygiene at home, etc.
As Walden University (6) puts it,
“It [poverty] pervades multiple areas of life – and for parents whose income is below the poverty line, it often means sending their children to school hungry, along with other disadvantages, both academic and otherwise”.
For back-to-school poor children, back-to-school poverty or deprivations could be their inability to cope with changes, new routines and meeting new people. These deprivations have to be added to back-to-school costs.
• • Back-to-school Costs
Without making any international comparisons, it is worth mentioning the back-to-school costs below.
In Africa, the cost of back-to-school items significantly varies by country, ranging from free education in some places to hundreds of dollars or thousands of francs for basic supplies and fees, with costs often representing a substantial portion of family’s income. Although many governments removed primary school fees and introduced free secondary education in recent years, parents still face challenges to cover back-to-school bills and extra expenses.
For instance, in the Democratic Republic of Congo tuition-free primary education was introduced in 2019. However, there are still ongoing costs for families to keep their children in school, such as teacher bonuses, essential school supplies, and uniforms. The total cost significantly varies by region and socioeconomic status. Another example is Gabon where parents face rising costs for basic items like notebooks and school bags, with some notebooks costing as much as 30,000 CFA francs (around £48 USD), according to local sources.
In the UK, the website ‘actionforchildren.org.uk’ (7) states that
“According to Child Poverty Action Group and Loughborough University’s Centre for Research in Social Policy, the minimum cost of education in the UK is now over £1,000 a year for a child at primary school. For a secondary school pupil, it costs a family a minimum of £2,300 a year (based on 2024 costings)… With 4.5 million children living in poverty and an ongoing cost-of-living crisis, these costs put huge financial pressure on families who are already struggling to manage high energy bills and inflation … Child Poverty Action Group revealed that learning materials cost a family £64.66 for a child in primary school, and £449.67 for secondary school”.
Those low-income families facing the financial burdens when purchasing essential school-related items (like uniforms, equipment, and digital resources) which can prevent their children from fully engaged with school life, can meet the conditions characterising their children as living below the back-to-school poverty line.
Back-to-school poverty can be tackled. This is why during this September we will be working with those suffering or may suffer from back-to-school poverty so that they can find the tools and means to navigate their way out of this type of poverty.
• • Back-to-school Clinics to Help Tackle Back-to-school Poverty
CENFACS does not provide money to tackle back-to-school poverty; CENFACS can however work with parents of children going back to school in sessions whereby they can have social prescription or the tools to transition or navigate their way out of the back-to-school poverty.
CENFACS can work with the community through its advice service and other services so that the members of its community can find their way out of this type of poverty. Particularly and specifically, CENFACS’ Back-to-school Clinics are designed to work with them to tackle back-to-school poverty or deprivations in the following ways:
√ Reducing the competition between living expenses and educational expenses within the household budget coverage
√ Exploring potential supporters to help them with educational costs for their children education
√ Budgeting with them their living expenses for a better start of the academic year
√ Examining together any issues relating to transport cost to travel to schools or places of education while advising them on net zero CO2 emitting means of transport
√ Discussing ways of saving on energy use, food and meals relating to educational purposes
√ Looking into school catchment area for those looking for a place to study
√ Working on a feasible and realistic plan when studying at home
√ Re-examining back-to-school spending and income budgets for households
√ Supporting family relocation matters (e.g., accommodation in the vicinity of schools and working places for parents)
√ Working with them to tackle hygiene poverty and learning poverty to keep children better engaged with their education and learning
√ Managing transitionary changes from the Summer schedule and routines to the school schedule
Etc.
The above is our poverty reduction goal for this month, which is part of our back-to-school campaign and which we are asking to our audiences and supporters to help or promote.
• • Implications for Selecting the Goal for the Month
After selecting the goal for the month, we focus our efforts and mind set on the selected goal by making sure that in our real life we apply it. We also expect our supporters to go for the goal of the month by working on the same goal and by supporting those who may be suffering from the type of poverty linked to the goal for the month we are talking about during the given month (e.g., September 2025).
For further details on the goal of the month, its selection procedure including its support and how one can go for it, please contact CENFACS.
• Activity/Task 9 of the Restoration (‘R’) Year and Project: Help People Find Their Own Restoration Answers
Our Restoration (‘R’) Year and Project has reached its 9th Activity/Task which is ‘Help People Find Their Own Restoration Answers’.
• • What This Guidance Activity/Task Is about?
This Activity/Task is about guiding and supporting the people with restoration problems by providing them practical tips and resources to restore things or their lives. It is about leading, directing and showing the way to those who are struggling with restorations and who need help, advice or counselling.
As Psychology Today (8) puts it,
“We can guide people to find their own answers through a combination of listening and asking questions”.
So, to help people find their own answers in the process of returning things or lives to a former and higher status, one can
~ lead them on a path to figure restoration responses
~ leave a room for them to develop insights into the restoration models
~ let them gain ownership to the restoration process and problems
~ briefly show the way to restoration.
• • Supporting This Activity/Task
Those who would like to proceed with this activity/task by themselves can go ahead. They can follow these steps: plan the restoration, use a structured approach to guide the restoration process, and use restoration techniques to guide people looking for restoration.
Those who would to be part of a working group helping in the realisation of this activity/task can let CENFACS know.
The above is what Activity/Task 9 of the Restoration (R) Year/Project is about. Those who would like to undertake it, they can go ahead.
For those who need some help themselves before embarking on this activity/task, they can speak to CENFACS. To speak to CENFACS, they are required to plan in advance or prepare themselves regarding the issues they would like to raise.
For any other queries and enquiries about the ‘R‘ project and this year’s dedication, please contact CENFACS as well.
Extra Messages
• Intergenerational Financial Planning for Families – In Focus from Week Beginning Monday 01/09/2025: Equipping Children with Financial Literacy
• Happiness, Healthiness and Wellness Journal – It is time to share the contents of your creative activity
• Unlock Your Summer 2025 Holiday Data and Tell Your Story
• Intergenerational Financial Planning for Families – In Focus from Week Beginning Monday 01/09/2025: Equipping Children with Financial Literacy
Perhaps, the best way of kicking off this first topic of Intergenerational Financial Planning for Families is to explain financial literacy.
• • What Is Financial Literacy?
Financial literacy can be defined in many ways. One of its definitions comes from ‘financialstrategists.com’ (9) which argues that
“Financial literacy is the capability to understand financial concepts and apply this skill in decisions related to savings, investments and debt management”.
This definition can apply to both adults and children. From this perspective, financial literate children would be better equipped to make sound financial decisions and navigate life’s financial challenges.
• • Financial Literacy for Children
There are pros and cons arguments about teaching financial literacy to children. By considering the pros arguments and leaving away the cons ones, the website ‘ghpia.com’ (10) argues that
“Teaching children about money from an early age sets them up for long-term financial success by equipping them with the knowledge to make informed financial decisions”.
The same website ‘ghpia.com’ adds that key lessons to teach could be Saving with Purpose, Needs versus Wants, Earning Money, and Compound Interest.
The all purpose here in teaching children financial literacy or money is not only for them to know how to count money. The key aim here is about helping them get involved in financial intergenerational processes. This means that whoever teaches children financial literacy would have in mind an intergenerational financial plan (that is, a comprehensive strategy for managing and transferring family wealth across multiple generations to ensure financial security, stability, and alignment with family values).
There are both print and online resources about financial literacy generally and financial literacy for children specially. There are those members of our Community who may have access to these resources. There are others who do not have this access or support or simply are not able to understand the contents of these resources. For the latter who would like to know about Equipping Children with Financial Literacy and to work with CENFACS, they can contact us. Equally, for those who would like to get further information about Financial Literacy for Children, they can as well let us know.
Similarly, those who may be interested in Intergenerational Financial Planning or in discussing their Intergenerational Financial Plan, they should not hesitate to contact CENFACS. Equally, those who would like to tackle intergenerational poverty can communicate with CENFACS.
• Happiness, Healthiness and Wellness Journal – It is time to share the contents of your creative activity
After six weeks of journaling, it is time to start sharing the contents of your journal. Indeed, during the last six weeks of Summer, some of you have been journaling on one of the six predictors that explain happiness and healthiness, which are: income, social support, healthy life expectancy, generosity, freedom, and trust. They have been also journaling on the components of wellness.
As previously said, the contents of these journals could be shared with the community at the end of Summer 2025 as a Summer memory or souvenir. Although Summer is not yet officially over, those who have created their Happiness, Healthiness and Wellness Journal can start to share with the community. But, what is content sharing?
• • Content Sharing of Your Happiness, Healthiness and Wellness Journal
The content Sharing for your Journal of Happiness, Healthiness and Wellness refers to the sharing of user-generated content that showcases your experiences about the applications of Happiness, Healthiness and Wellness projects during Summer 2025.
However, in order to share their contents you may need a strategy and tools as well as to monitor your social performance.
• • Content Sharing Strategy
You need to plan or strategize yourself the way in which you want to share your content. In other words, you need to have a process of or planning and conducting some content sharing tasks.
• • Content Sharing Tools
You also need implements or instruments to deliver your content to us and others.
For example, if you want to share you content online you can refer to online tools to do it. Let say you use Twitter. You can use Twitter feed to share your content to a range of platforms. You can go online to share your content. You can use online tools to do it. You can share it multiple times. You need to have social sharing plugins on.
Speaking about share phase from memory card to memorable stories, the website ‘max-productive.ai’ (11) suggests to use CapCut AI, which has completely free core features and directly exports to social platforms. It also proposes to utilise Podcastle, which turns your travel stories into podcast.
• • Monitoring Your Social Performance
You can monitor your performance in content sharing.
For example, you can monitor the traffic you get to your posts relating to Happiness, Healthiness and Wellness Journal, whether it is online or offline.
Please share with the community your experience of happy, healthy and good Summer time through the contents of your journal to help build a better Summer holiday experience and memory.
• Unlock Your Summer 2025 Holiday Data and Tell Your Story
In our July and August 2025 communications, we asked everybody to store and keep their Summer data so that when we all return in September, we can report back or share parts of our Summer experiences that are shareable and spreadable.
Now some of you are back, we can try to feedback our poverty-reduction and development experiences of using Happiness, Healthiness and Wellness projects and of any other similar activities over the Summer period. To feedback, you may need ways of unlocking your summer data.
• • Ways of Unlocking Your Summer Data
To unlock your Summer data, one can proceed with the following:
σ Have your holiday records updated, complete and accurate
σ Know where your data is stored or sitting (e.g., mobile phone camera, laptop, tablet, memory card, etc.)
σ Extract your data including images from sources where they are stored
σ Use technology or manual means to unlock them
etc.
• • Tools to Unlock Your Summer Holiday Data
There are many tools that can be used to unlock your Summer holiday data.
For instance, one can use AI report generator tools for smart reporting (12). Tools (like Pictochart, WPS AI or ChatGPT) can streamline your reporting process and remove friction in your Summer reporting.
• • What You Can Report Back or Story You Can Tell
Apart from the above-mentioned experiences, one can feedback any creations, any other experiences, any community practices and any volunteering stories, if they volunteered, they had over the last two months.
One can report back a personal Summer experience as well.
Likewise, one can combine their Summer journal (about predictors that explain happiness and healthiness) and this reporting back exercise into a single or all-in-one Summer report.
For those who managed to store their Summer data and who would like to share their experiences, this is the time to start unlocking their Summer data and preparing to tell their Summer story.
• • The Good Thing about Sharing Your Experiences
Sharing your experiences with us helps to keep the CENFACS Community active, engaged, connected and grow together. It also contributes in carrying out prescriptive analytics that enables to use smart data discovery capabilities to predict market developments, trends and insights to help relieve or possibly end poverty and hardships within our community and beyond.
Please share your poverty-relieving and development experiences and contents with us; parts of your experiences and contents that you think are shareable and perhaps spreadable.
Should anyone have any concern about data protection issues regarding the sharing of their information, please let CENFACS know. We will be able to assist.
Message in French (Message en français)
• L’Examen de la Performance Financière du CENFACS – Un Extrait de la Revue d’Impact Annuel de CENFACS pour l’Exercice Financier 2024/2025
Ce qui suit est le résumé de nos recettes et paiements pour l’année se terminant le 30 juin 2025.
Du côté des paiements, les effets persistants du coût de la vie ont continué. En raison de ces effets, nos coûts ont augmenté sauf pour les bénévoles, les consommables informatiques et les comptes de transport et de voyage. Nous avons utilisé des moyens de transport peu coûteux, préservé l’environnement en recyclant nos cartouches et couvert des dépenses très raisonnables pour les bénévoles.
Quatre comptes (c’est-à-dire papeterie et livres, rafraîchissements, abonnement informatique et services publics) ont présenté une énorme augmentation.
Concernant les comptes de papeterie et de livres, nous avons connu une augmentation de presque 156 %. En effet, pour répondre aux préférences des utilisateurs/rices (usagers/ères) et aux changements technologiques, nous avons dû maintenir un niveau de stock de papeterie relativement adéquat. Cela nous a permis d’empêcher les articles de manquer en stock. Nous devions garder un équilibre entre le travail sur papier et sans papier en ayant suffisamment de papeterie pour répondre aux besoins de notre communauté où le papier est impliqué. De plus, depuis les années COVID-19 (entre 2019 et 2023), notre stock de papeterie et de livres a considérablement diminué, alors qu’il y a toujours un minimum de papeterie requis pour fonctionner en tant qu’organisation.
Concernant les rafraîchissements, les températures élevées que nous constatons tous/toutes nécessitent de boire beaucoup d’eau et de consommer des aliments liquides pour nous rafraîchir et poursuivre notre travail. En conséquence, il y a eu une augmentation de presque 600 % des dépenses de rafraîchissement pour atténuer l’impact du changement climatique sur la santé des bénévoles.
Pour ce qui est de notre abonnement informatique, le coût du service d’hébergement web et de la bande passante a augmenté ; ce qui signifie que notre abonnement informatique ne pouvait pas rester le même. Il y a eu une augmentation de 15 % de leurs coûts, reflétant les tendances actuelles à la hausse des prix des services de ce type. De même, le prix de l’espace de bureau et des services publics, que ce soit en travaillant dans des locaux commerciaux ou depuis chez soi, a également augmenté de presque 14 %. Il y avait également des comptes qui ont montré une augmentation modeste, comme les téléphones fixes/mobiles et l’internet (1,9 %).
En plus de ces augmentations, nous avons également enregistré des baisses, comme nos comptes de frais de port qui ont diminué à presque 10% alors que nous continuions à communiquer par e-mails et que les tarifs postaux continuaient d’augmenter. Une autre baisse est venue des articles divers de bureau, car nous avons dépensé un montant raisonnable pour répondre aux besoins de l’administration de bureau suite aux économies réalisées ces dernières années sur ce compte. Ces dépenses diverses de bureau étaient destinées à nous couvrir contre l’incertitude de l’économie. Les autres comptes qui ont connu une baisse étaient l’impression et la photocopie (-20%).
En ce qui concerne le financement et les reçus, le défi de collecter les fonds nécessaires pour répondre aux besoins de la communauté demeure. Cela peut s’expliquer en partie par l’effet cumulatif des impacts persistants de la crise du coût de la vie et de l’incertitude économique qui continuent d’inciter de nombreux donateurs(rices) / financeurs (ses) individuel(le)s à être hésitant(e)s ou réticent(e)s. Il ne faut pas non plus oublier les réductions de l’aide internationale qui ont un effet indirect sur la manière dont les gens soutiennent les bonnes causes en Afrique.
Nous devons admettre que nous avons encore des demandes de financement pour lesquelles nous n’avons pas encore reçu de réponses de la part de donateurs (rices) / financeurs(ses) / organismes de subvention potentiels. Cela signifie qu’il y a une raison de croire qu’il y a encore une possibilité de réponses positives de leur part ou de générer des fonds.
En ce qui concerne le compte des fonds en espèces, nos fonds en espèces ont maintenu leur tendance à la hausse. Au cours de l’exercice financier 2024/2025, nous avons enregistré une augmentation de presque 71 %. En termes comptables, cela signifie que nous avons réussi à augmenter nos recettes par rapport aux paiements, nos recettes ayant presque souligné une augmentation de 71 %.
Nous avons continué à réaliser des économies sur le budget à l’étranger, les coûts des bénévoles, la publicité et la communication, la traduction, le matériel de bureau et de mobilier, les bénéficiaires de projets, la recherche et le développement, ainsi que les coûts de collecte de fonds. Cette augmentation et les économies réalisées sur les paiements ont abouti à un solde net positif de notre compte de recettes et de paiements pour l’année.
Nous espérons que le rebond de nos fonds de trésorerie se poursuivra régulièrement et sera même perceptible au cours de l’exercice financier 2025/2026. Nous pouvons également nous attendre à ce que les fruits de nos efforts de collecte de fonds liés à des modèles de financement alternatifs et à nos nouveaux modèles commerciaux apparaissent pleinement dans le nouvel exercice financier (2025/2026) et au-delà.
Des détails supplémentaires sur l’Examen d’Impact Annuel de CENFACS 2024/2025 peuvent être demandés auprès de CENFACS.
Main Development
• Back-to-poverty-relief Programme 2025: Programme for Pre-autumn Season 2025
The following covers our programme for this pre-autumnal season:
∝ Back-to-poverty-relief Projects
∝ Open Days under Back-to-poverty-relief Programme
∝ Back to Humanitarian Relief Work by Supporting Crises-impacted Children in Africa
∝ Back to the Upkeep of the Nature This September 2025
∝ Back to Advisory Support This September 2025
∝ Back to the Upkeep of the Nature with the Theme of “Orange Spaces”
∝ Orange Spaces-focused Note for Week Beginning 01/09/2025
Let us briefly explain these contents.
• • Back-to-poverty-relief Projects
These initiatives aim at reducing poverty particularly among multi-dimensional poor children, young people and families (MPCYPFs). They are designed to work with MPCYPFs to find answers to back-to-school pain points they may be experiencing.
They focus on providing support and services to help them meet their needs after school breaks or holidays; in doing so enabling them to start the school year with less hardship or friction. These projects are part of a broader effort to assist them and promote a future free from poverty.
As previously mentioned, most of our projects and programmes are organised to take into account the lives and needs of our beneficiaries, supporters as well. Some of them will be back this week after Summer break. They are back for the New Academic Year and New Relief, year for which we have prepared projects and programmes to work with them so that they can meet their existing, challenging, changing and emerging needs – the back-to-poverty relief projects and programmes.
Amongst the back-to-poverty-relief projects and programmes, there are these two ones: Open Days and Support to Children.
• • Open Days under Back-to-poverty-relief Programme
Since we set up hybrid way of delivering service as a legacy of the coronavirus, we continue to operate virtually/online and in-person. There are reasons we operate both ways.
One of these reasons is that it is not always easy for people, especially those who have some physical handicaps and parents with small kids, to in-person move and meet service providers if this service provision cannot physically come to them even if the need is pressing.
Where we are in a position to in-person organise the service requested, users can in-person access the given service prior to arranging an appointment.
So, our open days will be both virtual and in-person. They are virtual days to enable those in need but cannot move physically to access services. They are in-person for those who prefer in-person open days. For the latter ones, they need to book an appointment for in-person open day to happen.
• • • What are virtual and in-person open days?
Virtual and In-person Open Days (VIODs) are days and hours when CENFACS Community members and the members of sister communities can have real chance or taste of poverty reduction experience with CENFACS. They are part of a back-to-poverty-relief initiative or campaign organised by CENFACS during this September 2025 to enable people in need to access our advice service and other similar services in order to reduce or end poverty linked to their situations or conditions of life.
• • • How VIODs work
Our Virtual Open Day (VOD), which will be every Fridays of September 2025, will be held from 10 am to 2 pm.
You can access VODs by contacting CENFACS.
You do not need to register with us.
Every Fridays, you can either email or phone or even text between 10 am and 2 pm.
Our In-person Open Day (IOD), which will also be every Fridays of September 2025, will be held from 10 am to 2 pm. An appointment needs to be booked to have in-person open day.
For more on CENFACS’ Virtual and In-person Open Hours and Days as well as how they work, please contact us.
• • Back to Humanitarian Relief Work by Supporting Crises-impacted Children in Africa
Another back-to-poverty-relief initiative for this September 2025 is Support for Crisis-impacted Children in Africa, particularly the Children of Conflict-stricken and Climate Change-affected Areas of Africa in this September and beyond. The majority of these children may not start school or return to school this September because of the following events:
> the outbreak of fighting internally displacing them (like the Eastern part of the Democratic Republic of Congo)
> violence against them as it is happening in the Central Sahel region of Africa
> severe weather conditions (e.g., flooding in Cameroon)
> severe acute malnutrition (e.g., in East Africa)
etc.
As a result of these events on children not starting or returning to school this September, we shall revisit the following ten humanitarian appeals, which are:
√ End Mpox! as an Influence Appeal for Health Emergency, Prevention, Preparedness and Response to the Monkey Pox Disease
√ The Internally Displaced Persons of Kwilu Need Your Support
√ Rescuing Children Education in Africa
√ Giving Hope to the Humanitarian Needy of Mali in 2025
√ The Internally Displaced Persons of Masisi Want Your Support
√ Halving Poverty for and with the Internally Displaced Orphans in Africa
√ Lighting a Blaze of Hope for Peace, Security and Poverty Reduction for the Conflict Victims of Goma and Its Vicinity in the Democratic Republic of Congo
√ The Double Crisis Impacted Peoples of Kinshasa and Tanganyika Ask for Your Help
√ Orphaned Children in Africa Are Searching for Support: Can You Help?
√ Support Vulnerable Children in Africa Left Without Hope by Foreign Aid Cuts.
These appeals were launched under the Light projects.
The people on whose behalf these appeals were made included children. Children were amongst displaced persons, the victims of conflict, the impacted of natural events and food insecure as part of appeal beneficiaries.
While one can still ask the progress made to save and rebuild these crises-impacted lives, one can also question about the support that the children affected by these crises are receiving and/or received, especially at this challenging time of the pressures of the costs of living.
This questioning is relevant as we are in September when a new school or academic year starts in many parts of the world and of Africa. This questioning is even founded at this time when many parents will struggle to provide school uniforms and equipment to send their children back to school.
Parents and children have another battle where school infrastructures and buildings were destroyed because of events like wars and natural disasters, or simply occupied as refuges by the war and climate change victims.
These negative effects are even greater for children from poor places in developing countries (like of Africa) where educational opportunities have been denied to many of them regardless of the current global economic situation.
So, during this September we will be working on this back-to-poverty-relief initiative to explore ways of keeping education alive for these unfortunate children living in those parts of Africa in crisis. Through this initiative, we will help get education and learning back on track for these children.
For further details about this initiative, please contact CENFACS.
• • Back to the Upkeep of the Nature This September 2025
September is also the month we resume our advocacy work on the upkeep of the nature.
Back to the Upkeep of the Nature this September 2025 will revolve around three areas of work, which are: a new advocacy project called “MAMBILANGA”, access to natural spaces with the theme of “Orange Spaces” and an e-discussion on circular economy (on how to improve circularity inside your household). Let us summary the contents of these three areas.
• • • “MAMBILANGA” Project
Normally, our advocacy work on the upkeep of the nature starts from the protection and care of animals in Africa from illegal killings, extinction and poaching. This year, our work will be on those species that have been considered as the most endangered in Africa in 2025 (13). To name the few, we can mention Black Rhino, African Elephant, African Wild Dog, Addax Antelope, and Amur Leopard.
In the last week of September 2025, we shall focus on saving endangered amphibians (i.e., frogs, toads, caecilians and salamanders) through our new initiative called ‘MAMBILANGA’ (that is, Mind Amphibians for Maintaining the Balance of Insects in the Lives of Aquatics and Nutrients, and for Guarding Agriculture). It is an advocacy for the endangered amphibian species.
MAMBILANGA is a new advocacy project planned by CENFACS to help protect critically endangered amphibian species and keep them up in their natural habitat in Africa. Amphibians like Pickersgill’s Reed Frog (Hyperolius pickersgill), Whitebelly Egg Frog (ptodactylodon albiventris), and Western Nimba Toad are critically endangered. Likewise, Western Leopard Toad, Gohath Frog, Big-eyed Forest Tree Frog, and Perret’s Night Frog are endangered species.
It emerges from the Second Global Amphibian Assessment making the State of the World’s Amphibians (14) that Amphibians are the most endangered vertebrate group, with 41% of species facing the threat of extinction in Africa. There are major trends that explain this threat. Among these trends, the literature on amphibians mentions habitat loss, climate change, and diseases.
There are ongoing efforts to prevent further extinctions. As part of these efforts, we are setting up the ‘MAMBILANGA ’ project. The ‘MAMBILANGA ’ project, which has already kicked off, will help us to advocate for a safe life for amphibian species.
• • • Orange Spaces
Another initiative featuring this September 2025 is our advocacy on lands which will be conducted under the theme of “Orange Spaces“. Orange Spaces take stock of the advocacy on spaces and spatial analysis of poverty or spatial poverty theories which we worked on since September 2019.
In September 2019, we worked on the Protection of the Oceans (particularly the waters surrounding Africa and the rivers and lakes in Africa).
In September 2020, we carried on with the advocacy on waters through the theme of “Blue Spaces”.
In September 2021, we had a 3-week work on sea level rise as notes for the “Blue Spaces”.
In September 2022, we had three weeks and five days of advocacy work on safe, inclusive and accessible Green spaces.
In September 2023, we continued our space analysis and advocacy with the theme of “Grey Spaces” and space implications for poverty reduction and sustainable development.
In September 2024, we advocated about Brown Spaces, the redevelopment of these spaces (that is, brown space or brownfield redevelopment).
This September 2025, we are working on “Orange Spaces”. An “Orange Space” does not have a standard definition. It refers to areas shown as orange on a poverty map. It represents locations with rising poverty rates or increasing spatial concentrations of deprivation.
The notes for this new advocacy, which start from this 3rd of September 2025, are given below.
• • • E-discussions on Circular Economy
To conclude the month, we will be hosting some discussions on ways of improving circularity inside households. The themes for circular economy discussions will be centred on shifting from a ‘take-make-waste’ linear model to a ‘reduce-reuse-recycle’ system by adopting practices and strategies that minimise waste, keep products and materials in high-value circulation and regenerate nature.
We have planned to approach three themes, which are:
a) Responsible/Mindful Consumption
b) Product Longevity and Maintenance
c) Resource Efficiency.
These e-discussions will involve new technologies (like Artificial Intelligence) to help bring further circularity inside home and to find out how our community members are doing in terms of economic circularity.
Briefly, Back to the Upkeep of the Nature this September 2025 will include the “MAMBILANGA ” advocacy project, access to natural spaces with the theme of “Orange Spaces” and e-discussions on circular economy (on how to improve circularity inside your household).
• • Back to Advisory Support This September 2025
As above mentioned, Advice is CENFACS’ main theme for September. We provide advice to both individuals and organisations.
• • • Advice Service for Individuals
Some of you are aware that most of CENFACS services in the UK are designed to support multi-dimensional poor children, young people and families (CYPFs). After the summer break, many of them will come back to start their life again. From September onward, they will go back to school for CYPs and to work and training for parents and guardians.
They may need or ask for support to restart or look for occupational opportunity or even just resume their routine activity in September. Their needs could include the following:
∝ Finding a new school or a nursery for children
∝ Registration to health services
∝ Finding accommodation or relocating
∝ Accessing training opportunity or employment
∝ Looking for a new occupation to deal with the economic effects of the costs of living
∝ Finding help to adjust their life after Summer break or any period of inactivity
∝ Looking for direction to overcome the lingering effects of the cost-of-living crisis
∝ Finding ways of resetting or changing their systems of living
∝ Moving forward to protect gains underscored on poverty relief
∝ Building upon progress made on poverty reduction
Etc.
Besides the above main menu, we shall have Transitioning Back-to-school Programme. This is an experiment or experience of working with parents or families who may struggle to manage back-to-school transitions for children suffering from mobility to cope with changes, new routines and meeting new people.
We can provide advisory support to them. Where our capacity is limited, we can refer and/or signpost them to relevant specialist services and organisations to help them meet their needs.
We do it under CENFACS’ Capacity Advice Service which was established since 2004 (through CENFACS’ Capacity Advice and Development project for Croydon’s African and Minority Ethnic People) to help individuals gain various types of help.
The types of help we provide include:
√ Translation (English to French and vice versa)
√ Interpreting
√ Generalist advice
√ Guidance
√ Signposting
√ Referral
√ Advocacy
Etc.
As we are in a digital era, we adapted the provision of the above listed help while still retaining its essence. Four years ago, we introduced leaves in this service to make it Leaves-based Advice Service.
You can contact CENFACS for the range of issues included in this service and to find out if your problem can be dealt with.
Regarding Translation service, we would like to remind everybody that the 30th of September 2025 is the International Translation Day. For those who need a translation service, they can contact us on the day for translation. But, they need to let us know at least three days before so that we can include their request in our plan.
• • • Advice Service for Organisations
The same advice service applies to overseas and Africa-based Sister Organisations.
Under our international advice service, we can advise them on the following matters:
√ Capacity building and development
√ Project planning and development
√ Poverty reduction within the context of Africa Continental Free Trade Area
√ Not-for-profit investment and development
√ Absorption capacity development
√ Fundraising and grant-seeking leads
√ Alternative funding strategies
√ Income generation and streams
√ Sustainable development
√ Not-for-profit investment and impact investing
√ Monitoring and evaluation
Etc.
Again, where our capacity to advise is limited, we can refer and or signpost them to relevant international services and organisations. This advisory support for Africa-based Sister Organisations is throughout the year and constituent part of our work with them. However, they can take advantage of our advice-giving month to seek further advice on any of the above matters.
To access advice services, please contact CENFACS. To register for or enquire about advice services, go to www.cenfacs.org.uk/services-activities.
• • Back to the Upkeep of the Nature with the Theme of “Orange Spaces”
The following will help deal with this theme: theme statement and key notes covering this theme.
• • • Theme statement
The theme of “Orange Spaces”, which is under the back to the upkeep of the nature (which is part of our back-to-relief programme), will be looked at in terms of poverty reduction. This theme refers to the concept of the orange economy, which symbolises creativity and cultural identity.
• • • Orange economy
The orange economy (also known as the creative economy) is a sector based on creativity, culture, and intellectual property, generating goods and services from human ideas and talents. This economic model emphasizes the importance of cultural activities, such as art, music, and design, as a means to foster economic growth and alleviate poverty. By promoting creativity the orange economy aims to create jobs and improve the quality of life, ultimately contribute to poverty reduction efforts.
During CENFACS‘ Creative Economic Development Month in June, we dealt with the orange economy and its capacity in helping to reduce poverty, particularly but not limited to orange poverty.
• • • Orange poverty
Orange poverty refers to the concept of financial insecurity and the need for support to combat poverty. It highlights the struggles many individuals face in affording basic necessities like food, housing and healthcare. Reducing orange poverty can be added to our goal of the month of reducing back-to-school poverty. This involves working with the members of our community experiencing these two types of poverty.
This September’s work is also about spatial poverty.
• • • Spatial poverty and theory
Spatial poverty refers to the geographic concentration of poverty and disadvantage, often found in remote rural areas and slums in urban centres. It is characterised by areas where people live in conditions that limit their ability to access resources and opportunities, leading to persistent poverty and limited economic growth.
Spatial poverty theory links poverty with spatial geographical factors, and it emphasizes the important role of spatial geographical location in the formation and even maintenance of poverty. One of these theories comes from Kate Bird, Kate Higgins and Dan Harris (15) who speak about Spatial Poverty Traps.
This month, we are looking at spatial poverty and spatial poverty theories via orange spaces.
• • • What is an Orange Space?
Within the literature about spaces, orange space does not have a standard definition. It refers to areas shown as orange on a poverty map to represent locations with rising poverty rates or increasing spatial concentrations of deprivation. The existence of orange spaces signals areas where economic well-being is worsening and they can be used to identify where new poverty traps are forming or where existing ones are intensifying, influencing urban planning and the provision of resources.
This orange space is the subject of our work this month.
• • • Four key notes to work on Orange Spaces
To materialise what we have said above, we have planned four key notes or topics (as shown on the above figure relating to orange space theme) which include:
1) Orange Space as a visual indicator of poverty and unsustainable development
2) The relationship between Orange Space and spatial poverty
3) Elimination of poverty linked to Orange Space
4) Interaction between Orange Spaces, Brown Spaces, Blue Spaces, Green Spaces and Grey Spaces in the process of poverty reduction and sustainable development.
The notes or topics will be the vehicle by which we shall illustrate the central theme or message of the Orange Spaces. Through these notes, we hope users in their journey with us will undergo change in the long term in the way they approach Orange Spaces.
Let’s now summarise the first note or topic of our September 2025 work on Orange Spaces; note which starts from 03 September 2025.
• • • In focus from 03/09/2025: Orange Space as a visual indicator of poverty and unsustainable development
To deal with this first topic, we are going to briefly look at the following:
σ Orange as colour used in map
σ the contribution of spatial factors to poverty
σ ways of working with the community here in the UK and in Africa on orange space as a visual indicator of poverty and unsustainable development.
• • • • Orange space as a colour-coded map
Orange space refers to colour-coded map showing areas where poverty is increasing, as opposed to areas with falling poverty (often depicted in green). In other words, orange areas are those undergoing a rise in poverty rates, indicating worsening conditions.
• • • • Contribution of spatial factors to poverty
Spatial factors like urban peripheries, economic segregation, and spatial poverty traps also contribute to sustained or growing poverty. Because of their contribution, it is better to monitor these elements to understand their dynamics. One can use satellite imagery to do it.
• • • Working with CENFACS Community members on orange space as a visual indicator
What we are interested in here is to improve our community members’ understanding of Orange Space as a visual indicator. We are as well interested in the experience that our members had with Orange Space as a visual indicator of poverty and unsustainable development.
By working together with them, they can improve the way they can approach Orange Spaces. By joining forces, we can identify areas of unmet needs within our community and generate projects or activities to help satisfy those unmet needs.
So, this note will help us to work together with the community members so that they can be empowered on matter relating to Orange Space as a visual indicator of poverty and unsustainable development.
For those of our members who would like to work with us on the above-stated matter, they are welcome to work with us.
For those members who would like to share their experience in terms of Orange Spaces as visual indicators; they are also invited to share it with us.
For those who would like to further discuss with us any other matters or insights relating to the Orange Spaces, they should not hesitate to contact CENFACS.
Finally, those who have any queries and enquiries about this year’s Back-to-poverty-relief Programme and Projects, they can let CENFACS know them.
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• References
(1) https://www.bankofengland.co.uk/monetary-policy-summary-and-minutes/2025/august-2025 (accessed in September 2025)
(2) https://www.inflationtool.com/rates/uk#:~:text=… (accessed in September 2025)
(3) https://www.ofgem.gov.uk/news/changes-energy-price-cap-between-1-october-and-31-december-2025#:~:text=… (accessed in September 2025)
(4) https://www.leveragedev.co.uk/average-household-income-uk/ (accessed in September 2025)
(5) https://movingtotheuk.co.uk/living-in-the-uk/uk-cost-of-living-2025-guide-rent-bills-groceries#:~:text= (accessed in September 2025)
(6) www.waldenu.edu/progressas/education/resource/what-is-poverty-and-what-role-does-it-play-in-our-school (accessed in September 2023)
(7) https://www.actionforchildren.org.uk/blog/cost-of-back-to-school-shopping/ (accessed in September 2025)
(8) https://www.psychologytoday.com/us/log/the-questionologist/202103/how-guide-people-without-giving-advice?msockid (accessed in September 2025)
(9) https://www.financialstrategists.com/financial-advisor/financial-literacy/ (accessed in September 2025)
(10) https://ghpia.com/the-importance-of-teaching-financial-literacy-to-children/ (accessed in September 2025)
(11) https://max-productive.ai/blog/best-ai-tools-summer-holidays-2025/ (accessed in September 2025)
(12) https://www.allaboutai.com/best-ai-tools/productivity/report/#:~:text=… (accessed in September 2025)
(13) https://www.ifaw.org/international/journal/20-most-endangered-animals-wildlife-africa (accessed in September 2025)
(14) Re: Wild, Synchronicity Earth, IUCN SSC Amphibian Specialist Group 2023: State of the World’s Amphibians: The Second Global Amphibian Assessment. Texas, USA: Re: Wild
(15) Bird, K., Higgins, K. & Harris, D. (2010), Spatial poverty traps: An overview; available at https://media.odi.org/documents/5514.pdf (accessed in September 2025)
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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.
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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 until the end of 2025 and beyond.
With many thanks.
