A cockroach-ridden home, sick and distressed children, no phone or money to call for help. Julie Hayes, Digital Coordinator at The Louise Project (The Space), describes some of the everyday battles one mother faces who is living in poverty, has no education and doesn’t speak English.

“Recently, a lady with five children came to the door [of The Space] looking stressed and bedraggled. She was greeted with a smile and a sympathetic ear. Through our translator, she was able to tell us that her house was over-run with cockroaches and mice. She didn’t know how to contact anyone to get rid of them. Council services of this sort had been suspended over lockdown, but after a long queue on the pest control phone line, we were able to make an appointment for them to be dealt with. She was so appreciative.

She then divulged that her youngest son had a rash on his hands and mouth. She had been to the door of the doctor’s surgery but couldn’t enter because of COVID restrictions. She had been asked to send a picture of the infected areas by email to her GP. She didn’t have a smartphone to take a photo and had no email address or understanding of how to email.

“I felt so frustrated for her that something relatively simple was being made so difficult."

I was able to take the photograph and email it for her and make an appointment for her to speak with a doctor through a Romanian translator. I have added her name to the list of people to get one of the next wave of iPads which we have been given by Connecting Scotland and will encourage her to come to our classes so that she is trained in how to use it. It is a great privilege to be in a position to be ‘enabling choice and change.’

Later that day, she came back to say she’d had the appointment and medicine had been given for her son. Inspired by the outcome, she showed me her own leg which was causing her a lot of pain. It was riddled with Varicose veins and a suspicious looking mole. She told me that her older son was also crying out in pain with a sore ear and couldn’t bear it when anyone in the house made a noise. I was worried that a cockroach may have crawled in. I called the doctor again, and after more photos being sent, she was given appointments for telephone consultations with a translator.

Each call to the surgery took a lot of time ‘on hold’ and on a few occasions the call was cut off. I explained the situation to the receptionist and said how impossible it is for anyone without a smartphone or email. I couldn’t imagine how this woman would have managed without the help from The Space. She was visibly relieved that someone was listening to her and able to help. She had little English but kept saying ‘thank-you, thank-you, thank-you.’

My snippet of time spent with her gave me a taste of how difficult life is for her and many like her. It seems so unfair that the system is so difficult for her to access. I realised that ‘acting in solidarity for justice’ is an everyday occurrence at The Space. This being just one example of many such cases which are assisted every week.”