Author: leveltrust

June 2019

On Friday 21^st June, Vauxhall Motors, Costa Coffee and local children’s charity Level Trust teamed up to provide 300 packs of vital learning resources to children in Luton.

With an estimated 45.7% of children in Luton growing up in poverty, this material support is crucial in giving them a level chance in education – and beyond.

Level Trust’s Learn@Home packs are drawstring bags bursting with the things that children need to learn outside the classroom.

Christian Iszchak, Level Trust’s Operations Director, said: “Picking up and practising new skills at home has a huge impact on a child’s success at school.Learn@Home packs are full to the brim with exciting stationery, books and craft materials to help 2-5 year olds develop important skills like reading, writing and crafting as well as making them feel ready for school.”

June 2019

We’re looking for people to work on our SMASH summer school, to give children amazing holiday experiences. Find out more about the 2 roles we have available on our careers page.

July 2019

We’ve been hard at work refurbishing a new stock room for our Uniform Exchange. We’ve been lucky enough to have a huge amount of support from local organisations, who have sent volunteers to help us transform an unloved unit into a fully-functioning stock room.

This new stock room will make a big difference to the Exchange, as it gives us the space we need to hold and sort even more items for families, including much-needed PE kit.

At the beginning of July we had a team from HSBC, who put in a lot of elbow grease sanding and painting the walls. Then Luton Sixth Form College students came and sorted all of our PE kit, categorising it by school, so that we can begin to offer it to families in our Uniform Exchange.

A team from Randstad came and painted more walls and even the floor in the unit, and they began a full stock take of all of our uniform, moving it to the new stock room as they went. This was not an easy task as it involved a lot of dust, paint fumes and also stairs! They even made this brilliant video of their day with us:

Local firm Cawleys kindly donated a skip for 1 week to help us responsibly dispose of waste materials resulting from the refurb. Two volunteers from Vauxhall Motors spent two days constructing our hanging rails, so that we have lots of sturdy storage space for all of our stock. Local solicitors Machins came to finish the stock take and moved the rest of the stock into the new stock room, hanging it up on the new railings, and a team from The Mall took over where Machins left off. This is when it started to really feel like a stock room!

We’re incredibly grateful for the support from all of these organisations – we could not have done this without them. Thanks also goes to The Clothworkers’ Foundation and the National Lottery Community Fund for the grants that funded the work and enabled us to buy new equipment, including an all-important washing machine and tumble drier.

May 2019

End Child Poverty, the UK’s leading child poverty coalition, has released new data that shows that child poverty levels are shockingly high – and is rising fast in areas that are already hardest hit. This interactive map shows the full picture.

Heartbreakingly, Luton has the 7th highest levels of child poverty in Britain. The coalition, of which Level Trust is a member, is calling for the major Parties to put in place a strategy to reduce child poverty. The data shows that it is becoming the norm in some parts of Britain, with more than 50% of children living trapped in poverty in some constituencies.

Anna Feuchtwang, Chair of the End Child Poverty coalition, said:

‘We know what causes child poverty and we know how to end it. We know that the income of less well-off families has been hit by severe real-terms cuts in benefits and by higher housing costs. And we know that work alone does not guarantee a route out of poverty, with two thirds of child poverty occurring in working families.’

‘Yet in many areas growing up in poverty is not the exception it’s the rule with more children expected to get swept up in poverty in the coming years, with serious consequences for their life chances. Policymakers can no longer deny the depth of the problem or abandon entire areas to rising poverty. The Government must respond with a credible child poverty-reduction strategy.

 ‘The Government’s own data shows that child poverty in the UK has been rising steadily in recent years.    This just isn’t right.’

‘Growing up in poverty means growing up trapped. It restricts a child’s chances of doing well at school, of living a healthy and happy life, and of finding well-paid work as adults. We urgently need Government to set a course of action that will free our children from the grip of poverty.’

Level Trust CEO Jane Malcolm said:

“We know through our work how devastating poverty can be for children. It means that a child might not have the uniform and equipment they need for school. They’re unlikely to be able to do fun things in the school holidays and they are more likely to suffer with mental health problems and low self-esteem. They can feel embarrassed about making friends because they feel different and they can have little hope for the future. The damage poverty can cause is heart breaking – but it doesn’t have to be like this. That’s why we are joining the call to end child poverty in Luton and across the UK.”

End Child Poverty is calling for Government to set out an ambitious and credible child poverty-reduction strategy, including:

• Restoring the link between benefits (including housing support) and inflation, and then making up for the loss in the real value in children’s benefits as a result of the 4-year freeze and previous sub-inflation increases in benefit rates.
• Ending the two-child limit on child allowances in tax credits and universal credit-and reforming Universal Credit.
• Reversing the cuts and investing in children’s services such as mental health, education, childcare and social care.

The full report is available at: www.endchildpoverty.org.uk/poverty-in-your-area-2019/

Natalie is 11 and goes to a local Luton primary school.

This year, Natalie’s dad died suddenly of cancer. Natalie’s Dad had been the main earner for the family and after his death Natalie and her mum suddenly found themselves struggling to afford life’s basic essentials.

The winter started to draw in and Natalie didn’t have a winter coat. She didn’t want to miss out on playing with her friends at break time so she would still go outside; shivering from the cold whilst still trying to play. She was too worried to ask her mum for a new coat, because she knew her mum was grieving and that they didn’t have any money.

She didn’t want to give her mum something extra to worry about. The days past on and Natalie was getting colder and colder at school, so much so that some days she stopped going in. She kept catching colds and feeling unwell.

The school noticed that Natalie was not herself and offered her a Level Trust gift card for a new winter coat. Natalie and her mum were so overwhelmed with the relief, that this was one less thing to worry about, that they both burst in to tears of gratitude. Since then, Natalie has been at school everyday. She still plays with her friends at break time, but now she is snuggly and warm.

15-year-old Farah noticed that her school shoes were starting to get too small for her.

She wore them for a couple of days but they started to really hurt her feet. Farah comes from a large family with 5 other brothers and sisters.

Mum can only work part time because she has to care part time for her Nan who has a long-term illness. It means there is not much money to go around a household of so many. As a result, Farah’s mum couldn’t afford to buy her new school shoes. Farah was mortified. As a good student, she was rarely in trouble at school. She knew if she went into school wearing anything other than school shoes she would be put into isolation. So instead, Farah pretended to be unwell and stayed home from school.

Level Trust provided Farah with a gift card for a new pair of school shoes. Farah and her mum were really relieved and Farah has gone back to school and is studying hard for her GCSE’s.