Margo Uprichard, CEO of The Louise Project, says life at the project has developed a new rhythm since the pandemic stopped their regular weekly activities. While pre-COVID the project offered community drop ins, craft, cookery and literacy classes, food and fuel poverty are now the main issues they are responding to.

The project has supported 122 families in just seven weeks. Other key issues they have supported with include rent arrears, notice to leave by landlords, cessation of welfare benefits and utility arrears. Margo says some cases have been very intense, including a family facing eviction, lost legal documents, bank fraud, medical appointments, a family with no electricity and a mother struggling to feed her new born baby.

Incredibly, the project has still been able to continue supporting the local community through employment. They are pleased to now have four staff employed from the Roma community, two of whom manage their project shop, which Margo says has been a great success. The team are also delighted to welcome a newly appointed Welfare Benefit Project Worker, Eleonaora Surmajova, and a Digital Support Worker, Gabriel Covaciu – the project’s first male employee.

In addition to combating poverty issues, staff have continued to work with the Roma community to improve their literacy skills online. With great foresight, they helped some of the women develop their digital skills and they now have 16 women bettering their literacy and general knowledge via zoom. The women can now use various apps, including maps, Safari, calculator, YouTube and shopping apps. Last week the women attended a geography lesson using the map app and this week the ASDA app was used for virtual shopping, using a digital calculator to manage costs of a budget of £20.

On another occasion, one of the women brought a letter from her children’s school inviting her to connect with an interactive learning forum through a QR code. The team were able to show her how to do this with her iPad, provided by the project, and she was able to see her children’s work and post comments. The woman was delighted to be able to do this and her children were proud to see their mother’s comments.

The team are now actively working on Project Present, their Christmas initiative to provide Christmas toys and winter clothing for some of the children they support. This year 127 children are part of the programme and all gifts are donated and purchased by donors across the city.