With recent news that inflation is up at 10.5% and that the increased energy prices are here to stay, the cost of living crisis continues to bite us all, which is why our intergenerational social action group has decided to take action and make the cost of living crisis their main focus this year.
As it stands, the energy crisis has pushed more than 6.7 million households into fuel poverty, up from 4.5 million in October 2021*. To tackle this, our social action project, supported by Clarion Futures (the charitable foundation of Clarion Housing Group) and #iwill, created their very own cost of living campaign, #RaiseOurVoicesLowerPrices. In our monthly workshops, 15 young people from Langdon Park School and Spotlight Youth Centre and 8 of their older neighbours at Gawthorne Court, learnt key campaigning skills including writing speeches, letters to their local MP and designing information posters to support their campaign. The students also distributed Age UK resources to the older residents to help inform them about the support available if they are struggling to pay heating bills this winter.
The #RaiseOurVoicesLowerPrices campaign aims to highlight the impact increasing energy prices are having across the generations and inspire people to join their campaigning efforts. The participants decided to take action after reading a report from Age UK during one of our first intergenerational workshops and realising just how much the crisis was affecting low-income and older households in particular. To bring to life the campaign demands and the reality that many of the participants currently face, the group decided to make a video - scripted and filmed by the young people themselves! It features older participants sharing how the cost of living crisis has affected their daily lives, with a particular focus on the impact of food prices going up. The campaign demands range from lowering rent bills, supporting strikers to providing extra support for single people.
Both the older and younger generations taking part feel like they’ve learnt from each other in small but significant ways. One of our older participants said, “It’s really changed my perception of what young people are like today. It makes us feel cared for!” The younger people on the programme have expressed just how much coming to the workshops helps them think about the issues affecting them on a wider scale and feel useful by providing the older people with company. As one of them said, “talking to the older people makes you feel like you’re helping them in a small way.”
If you are over 65 and struggling with heating costs this winter, Age UK has set up a cost of living hub to try and help people feel more in control of their money. For more information go to https://www.ageuk.org.uk/information-advice/money-legal/cost-of-living/
* Source: https://www.theguardian.com/money/2023/jan/17/uk-energy-bills-social-tariff-government-jeremy-hunt