YMAV Fights Fuel Poverty

Aim

We want to support those in our community to survive this winter with the cost of living crisis

Youth Movement Against Violence cic supports the families and victims of violence by offering 1-1 support and group therapies, we also work within our local community offering projects and workshops including weekly yoga class, youth group, community healing garden and a weekly teatime club which we began last October when we could foresee that the cost of living crisis was on the horizon. All the services and projects we provide are 100% complementary and were created as we know that the impact mental health and stress that money worries bring can have a big impact on violence within the home, and with the current energy cost crisis which has not even reached its peak yet we know that their will be many individuals and families in our community who will really struggle with this increase both financially and mentally  so we want to support by providing items that will reduce the cost of energy bills by providing items that will reduce this cost such  as large flasks that can be filled once to provide multiple cups of tea/coffee rather than  boiling the kettle each time which  can add a big cost to energy bills. We will also provide electric blankets that can be wrapped around a person throughout the day and then placed on the bed at night and  this will help the household to not need to run their heating throughout the day which will greatly reduce that bill and they will only need to switch it on for a short period in the evening before getting into bed, if you use a blanket on the lower setting (usually 100W), it will cost you just over 3 pence per hour. We would also like to provide fleece jackets, fingerless gloves.  We would like to provide  energy vouchers to help people on prepay meters when they are running low and waiting on their DWP payment or monthly wage.  YMAV has  a small but dynamic team who are all highly qualified and we have a number of volunteers who have faced violence through poverty (lived experiences ). The cost of living crisis  is a great concern from the point of view of  mental health as coming of 2 years of living through  lockdowns and  having to isolate which had a massive impact on people's mental health now we are been faced with the fear and panic of how we are  going to get through this winter. Its hard to believe that in 2022 people are having to make the tough decision between heating their homes or feeding themselves and their  families. 

This project successfully funded on 6th January 2023