On behalf of Citizens Advice Shepway Chief Officer Sue Day has been recognized by the Rotary Foundation of Rotary International with the award of a Paul Harris fellowship.
The presentation, shown above, was made by Dr Terry Cooke-Davies, President of the Rotary Club Folkestone. This award is given in appreciation of a substantial contribution to humanitarian and educational programmes and previous recipients have included Mother Theresa, Nelson Mandela, the Pope and Prince Charles.
Shepway Citizens Advice was recognised for their work on the Money Matters Folkestone project, working with Kent Coast Volunteering to provide debt advice and mentoring support to Folkestone residents.
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The project was directed and funded by the Rotary Club of Folkestone with sponsorship from the Rotary Clubs of Lille, Liege and Cologne, Folkestone Town Council, Kent County Council, Folkestone and Hythe District Council, the People’s Postcode Lottery, the Sir Roger De Haan Charitable Trust, Kent Community Foundation and the Community Fund of the National Lottery.
“Provision of debt advice is through the Citizens Advice Money Adviser and supports clients in managing their money to become debt free; during the current Covid pandemic this has been a tremendous help” said Sue Day. “For instance, we had one client with over £6k of debt including rent arrears and we helped her to apply for Universal Credit and other benefits and assisted her in negotiating affordable repayments towards her debts. This increased her income and removed the threat of eviction.”
Shepway Citizens Advice has continued providing services throughout the Covid-19 pandemic when Universal Credit enquiries initially soared and new ways of working were quickly adopted to continue to meet demand, dealing with over 3000 enquiries since April.