LONG READS

Phionna has two sons with additional support needs and felt frustrated that information about available activities for her sons were hard to find. She realised that charities organising these activities were not communicating with each other because they were worried that their ideas would be stolen. “As a parent, I don’t care”, claims Phionna, “I need to know whether you can help these families or not”.

Aberdeen charity SHMU received funding from Inspire Scotland to further develop their community work. The funding will be invested in a project named after the charity’s motto “Create-Express-Transform” and will aim to help adults with societal barriers to obtain the skills they need to go forward. To accomplish this, SHMU has partnered with four other community justice charities in Aberdeen: Aberdeen in Recovery, Aberdeen Cyrenians, Turning Point Scotland and Families Outside.

There is an average of 4.6 million children living in poverty in the UK, which represents 34% of children in the country. AberNecessities is a charity that was launched in March 2019 to help provide necessary items to underprivileged families in Aberdeen. Since then, they helped around 4000 children: “We’ve grown quite a lot since last year”, Michelle Herd, co-founder and chief operating officer says, “it’s been absolutely crazy”.