Child Poverty in Ceredigion
Recently Iâve been seeing the image below about child poverty quite a lot on Facebook and other social media. I know that lots of people were surprised, saddened and upset by this figure 26.62% of children in Ceredigion live in poverty; and rightly so. Â
However, I was really surprised when I found out that the Child Poverty figure for the ward with the largest population of children living in Ceredigion - Penparcau (a village suburb of Aberystwyth) - was 39.85%. This means that out of every ten children that you meet from Penparcau four are living in poverty; yes thatâs nearly half of the children in a ward with nearly 1000 children! To draw a local comparison and to see why these issues need to be tackled at a ward level child poverty is at  0% in the Bronglais ward (Aberystwyth). Itâs not exactly clear if thereâs been a response to this.
 Only the Teifi ward in Cardigan has a higher percentage of child poverty (two and a bit percent higher),  but also has a population that is almost 2000 people fewer than Penparcau - according to the last census.
*Interestingly if we look at other indicators we can see that the Save the Children report CHILD POVERTY SNAPSHOTS - The local picture in Wales This report says that 12% or children in Ceredigion claim free school meals, however an additional 27% (who are eligible) are not claiming them. This is Ceredigion wide.
However, what is worrying has also been the increase in deprivation shown by the drop in the WIMD - Welsh Index of Multiple Deprivation - overall Penparcau looks to have worsened by nearly 150 places. Itâs disappointing to see that Income, Health, Education, Employment and Access to Services have all worsened.  However, the community are steeping in and doing something about this, the Penparcau Community Forum are working with the community to bring about change and Starkies served over 1000 meals to children and their families over the Summer (in 2014), but these organisations cannot survive on thin air.
This combined with the fact that West Wales (of which Penparcau is part) is number one in terms of it being the poorest area in Northern Europe, in terms of GDP. Link below
http://inequalitybriefing.org/graphics/briefing_43_UK_regions_poorest_North_Europe.pdf data produced by Eurostat, the data agency of the European Union
One only has to look at the census to also see that there has been a decline in the Welsh language, in an area where there was once one of the largest populations of Welsh speakers, yet little has been done directly in the village. It feels as though the issues of the area are not being addressed.Â
I think that there is a duty of care and that more needs to be done. There have been attempts - Communities First (funding withdrawn) and Flying Start - However, itâs evident that things have got worse over the last few years, so perhaps the funding needs to be given to grass roots organisations in the area that the community trust and who can engage with the local people and their issues.
The picture is taken from a Facebook page of a friend, and itâs from a campaign by http://www.endchildpoverty.org.uk
http://www.endchildpoverty.org.uk/why-end-child-poverty/poverty-in-your-area
http://www.endchildpoverty.org.uk/images/ecp/Wales_LA%20and%20ward%20data.xlsx
From: The Campaign to End Child Poverty
The Campaign to End Child Poverty is made up of more than 150 organisations from civic society including childrenâs charities, child welfare organisations, social justice groups, faith groups, trade unions and others, united in our vision of a UK free of child poverty.
We campaign to achieve our vision by:
- Ensuring the voices of families facing economic disadvantage are heard;
- Increasing understanding of the causes and impacts of child poverty and - mobilising public support and action;
- Promoting to politicians and government the case for ending child poverty by 2020, the actions that will achieve it and holding them to account on the requirements of the Child Poverty Act.
Penparcau - 39.85% of children living in POVERTY - after housing costs.
