Our Story
The Ancora Project was set up in 2016 to support people in crisis brought on by financial hardship and is a collaboration between KeyRing, Christians Against Poverty and Oldham Foodbank. Together we offer crisis support, long term training including life skills, peer support and case work.
The high level of need for this support in Oldham comes not only from people in financial crisis but we also reach those who typically do not ask for help such as people who have mental health needs, people who are homeless and have already fallen through the cracks plus people on low income, working long hours and still can’t make ends meet to support their families. We are currently supporting over 1400 people each year, a 93% increase on the number we expected.
In numbers: in the last 12 months we have supported
1402
people who attended 4736 times across 474 sessions.
956
people to access support with food and fuel.
124
people under 25 and 102 people over the age of 65.
176
people at risk of homelessness or who were rough sleeping.
Stories
Kerry's story
Like most mums Kerry’s key concern in her time of crisis was that her daughter be impacted as little as possible.
Kerry was living in temporary accommodation many miles from her daughter’s school and the extra pressure of the additional travel costs meant that Kerry’s budget was not stretching far enough for food and fuel.
Ancora supported Kerry with food parcels and fuel credit which addressed the immediate situation. The next step was to support Kerry and her daughter to build a brighter future.
We chatted with Kerry about her situation and supported her to contact her local councillor and share her story. With the Councillors support Kerry was soon moved to accommodation nearer her daughter’s school and her family.
Kerry says:
“Without Ancora, I could not have achieved this outcome. I was getting more and more depressed and could not see a way out of my situation. Thank you for your continued support, your understanding of our needs and the way you dealt with us. Our lives are so much better, thank you.”
Maddie’s Story
Maddie came to Ancora after trying numerous agencies for support to access a washing machine. Maddie is a working mum, with a 16-year-old son, who attends College, and eventually found Ancora’s details. She had recently separated from her long term, abusive partner, and had managed to secure a private let, in her family area, but this came with a high monthly rental. She had wanted to be near to her Mum, who is registered Blind, for mutual support. She was working full time as a House Manager for a local University, looking after the students in the Halls of Residence, and loved her role.She had moved to the new property with very little, but it was the lack of washing machine that impacted her the most.We applied for funding of the washing machine, directed her to the local Council for access to Discretionary Housing Payment and signposted her to Warm Homes Oldham for fuel credit, all of which she has managed to access. In addition, she has also changed her role at the University to a higher grade and has improved her income and her opportunities.
Meet Those Involved
By joining together we can do so much more to help the people of Oldham!
What Our Beneficiaries Have to Say
