“I was sort of stagnant, and now I’m not. Now I’ve got a future, thanks to the Livelihoods Project.” Diane Bennett, Peer Mentor at the South Riverside Community Development Centre
Oxfam Cymru’s three-year Building Livelihoods and Strengthening Communities in Wales project has helped over a 1,100 people in Wales, like Diane, to get their lives back on track.
The Livelihoods Project was designed to help support people who felt unable to help themselves. And over the past three years we’ve supported a widowed woman struggling with low self-esteem and loneliness, a young man who couldn’t afford the bus fare to get to work and a new mum dealing with post-natal depression.
Funded by the Big Lottery Fund and Unilever, the Livelihoods project used the SLA – the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach – which helps people identify the strengths and assets they already have, in order to tackle the root problem preventing them from reaching their potential.
Across Wales, and in collaboration with our fantastic nine partner organisations, Oxfam Cymru has been able to help:
- 636 people gain new skills and confidence;
- 648 people to get involved in community activities;
- 91 people to take up voluntary placements; and
- 90 people find jobs.
Using the SLA, the Livelihoods project has also made financial sense, securing an average return on investment of £4.39 for every £1 spent across Wales.
The numbers speak for themselves, and clearly demonstrate that this intensive, people-centred approach makes a huge difference to people’s lives.
Oxfam Cymru has developed a short film to help you learn more about the SLA – the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach – and to hear directly from the people who’ve benefited from the Livelihoods project.
Projects like these can and do make a difference. Considering the fact that poverty levels in Wales have been static for more than a decade, and one in four households live in relative poverty, the next Welsh Government must secure lasting change. We believe they can do so by embedding the SLA – the Sustainable Livelihoods Approach – in all policy and service delivery in Wales that is aimed at helping people break out of poverty. It has the potential to help thousands more across the whole of Wales.
To hear how we think this and more could be done to support people living in poverty in Wales take a look at our Blueprint for Change.
ENDS
The project’s nine partners are:
- The Foryd Centre (Denbighshire Voluntary Services Council), Rhyl
- DOVE Workshop, Banwen, Upper Dulais Valley, Neath Port Talbot
- Caia Park Partnership, Wrexham
- South Riverside Community Development Centre, Riverside, Cardiff
- African Community Centre, Swansea
- Sylfaen Cymunedol Cyfyngedig, Peblig, Caernarfon
- Glyncoch Community Regeneration, Glyncoch, Pontypridd
- Duffryn Community Link, Duffryn, Newport
- Wallich Clifford Community, Ebbw Vale (up to November 2015)