February has been another very busy month.  Clients have been helped with a wide variety of issues. These have included debt advice, gas and electricity payments, an application for social housing, an NHS form regarding a prescription, a Child benefit form and a Court Order issue. 

It is also notable that we have had numerous requests for help with applications for passports to help members of the Roma community to help them to gain Settled Status after Brexit.  This included one instance of writing a letter to the Czech Embassy.

We have also developed our community development work.   

We have continued to give out free food kindly donated by Greggs.

We have been working towards organising a separate monthly Health Session.  This would focus on a different feature of healthy living each month.

We have been talking to the NE First Credit Union about helping people from the Roma community to join if they so wish.  We are going to help people know about the credit union and how they can join, as an alternative to payday money lenders or illegal loan sharks.  Given that we deal with a large number of debt cases, we hope that this will be an important piece of preventive work.

We have also had an exploratory meeting with the manager of st Chad's Community Centre in Gateshead, to see how we could work in partnership and help members of the Roma community to take a greater part in the wider community. St Chad's hold a number of regular events, which could be very helpful to members of the Roma community.

Many thanks again to Greggs, Citizens Advice Gateshead and NE First Credit Union.

Peter Sagar, Company Secretary, A Living Tradition CIC, and Irma Karchnakova, interpreter and worker, March 2019