Kim Jakubiszyn works for housing association Southern Housing Group as a Community Partnerships Officer. For almost the past 22 years in her spare time she has been volunteering as leader of the 5th Tilehurst Guides, supporting Guides from the age of ten up until they become Adult Leaders to give young women a space where they can be themselves, have fun, build friendships, gain life skills and make a positive difference to their communities. Girlguiding is the UK’s leading charity for girls and young women, with 553,633 members in the UK and supported by 100,000 volunteers.
“…When we originally started looking at the campaign and what a loan shark was, we had quite a conversation about how it could affect communities. The girls themselves, including some of the ten year olds, were concerned that this could possibly be happening in their own neighbourhoods and communities…”
Stop Loan Sharks: We are the champions!
5th Tilehurst Guides recently became the Stop Loan Sharks National Champion for 2014 and we went to the House of Commons on the 22nd of August to meet the Minister for Consumer Affairs, Jo Swinson and Lord Toby Harris, Chair of the National Trading Standards Board to receive our award. We also had the Chief Executive of the Trading Standards Institute, Leon Livermore and Tony Quigley, the Head of the England Illegal Money Lending Team there to present our award.
Beating off stiff competition…
We won £1000, a trophy and a certificate. Before that we became our regional champion. We were up against eight other organisations, including two local authorities, two full police forces, another charity and two other housing associations. This was awarded on the basis of a public vote from across the whole of the UK, which was absolutely amazing.
It was a fantastic day. We got to go out on the terrace and the Houses of Parliament and have photographs. Our guides were quite cheeky and asked for selfies with the Minister, Jo Swinson and with Lord Harris too!
Girl Guides worried it could be happening in their own communities
We won the award because we decided we wanted to raise awareness of the Stop Loan Sharks campaign. When we originally started looking at the campaign and what a loan shark was, we had quite a conversation about how it could affect communities. The girls themselves, including some of the ten year olds, were concerned that this could possibly be happening in their own neighbourhoods and communities.
It could be a neighbour, it could be that friendly lady up the road, because loan sharks don’t go around with labels like payday lenders and other loan companies. They don’t go around with labels advertising their wares. They could be just your next door neighbour, they could be that nice friendly chap up the road doing you a favour and actually you get lured into something that is quite scary.
They were worried that their parents or any of their families, or any of their friends’ families could easily get affected, so they really wanted to raise awareness in this kind of innovative way. They didn’t want people to have to resort to these kind of desperate measures, because that’s what happens around the world. And they’ve had a lot of fun doing it.
Talking debt management and need versus want
We created a challenge booklet, containing all different types of challenges, information on need versus want, information on debt management and where you can go and speak to people to get help, it’s even got games on APR using chocolate buttons! It’s got lots of games and recipes as well.
We also created a website www.5thtilehurstguides.org.uk and a badge itself, so any Guide, Brownie, Rainbow, Young Leader or Adult Leader or Trefoil Guild Member within Girlguiding UK or internationally can complete the challenges and earn the badge. They can get in touch with us to download the challenges, buy the badges and any money that is made from the badges is used by the guides in their own personal budget; they this to do their own crafts or activities. They also learn how to use a budget with the activities from the challenge badge as well.
We wanted to raise awareness and we thought this was the best way of doing it. Our unit has got less than 20 members; we’re quite small at the moment. There are about 15 guides and young leaders who worked on this project, along with four adult guiders. It has taken us about a year and we had a budget of £500, which was given to use from the Illegal Money Lending Team.
We never thought we’d win any national awards – we never thought we’d win any awards! We just wanted to raise awareness for young people, so they don’t ever, ever have to use a loan shark and hopefully that’s what we’ve done.
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