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Welcome to the Changing Realities archive. This is where you can search and read our diary entries about the realities of getting by on low incomes.
▼ Found 181 entries
29 Jan 2025
Diary

Lizzy U

Today has been a tough day for us. We did not have enough essentials and nappies.

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29 Jan 2025
Q&A

Lizzy U

Key messages you’d share about how we work together on Changing Realities?

Hi everyone. The team is really doing a great job, and we are appreciating the vouchers so much. They really help us a lot with groceries and baby items.

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28 Jan 2025
Diary

Debbie S

Hi.

Sad day 😞

😟
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28 Jan 2025
Q&A

Debbie S

Key messages you’d share about how we work together on Changing Realities?

Hey there,

The key message is that the group is open to new Ideas. Like ,how it will grow to become better and help more people. The gift card that they are giving is really changing many people live's every week, and we are open to help in any way we can. Thanks again.

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28 Jan 2025
Diary

Evelyn D

I’m feeling suspended - with everything going on around us being so challenging, I’m really struggling to regulate my own life.

I read the ‘self-help’ blurb that is all over our socials, and I listen to the advice of professionals hoping that someone might just hold my hand for a bit.

I am tired, skint, challenged every day by my lovely but difficult son. I’m in the menopause and as a former smoker I’m worried sick about my health. I do have a health condition which puts me at great risk of strokes and heart failure, but I don’t think I realised until now just how serious it is. It’s a lifelong genetic condition which meant that I had to have treatment as a child, and I take medication every day to counteract the nasty side of the disease.

All of the things I face daily have finally impacted me so much, that I feel suspended. I feel that I can’t move forward, and of course I can’t go back. What can I do to change this?

When we aren’t able to take basic care of ourselves, it means that things we have to do and people who rely on us, suffer too. However much I might want to take my disengaged teen out to try to embed a good memory, I can’t. I haven’t the energy or resilience any longer to think up anything that might appeal to him, and even if I did have, I haven’t got the budget.

It’s a horror circle. I can’t work full time in a job that might pay well because my son’s needs seem to be escalating as he is in his mid teens. The specialist school we finally secured for him has put him on a significantly reduced timetable. That hugely impacts what I can do to earn some extra money, and it causes him to have elevated anxiety levels which then impact his treatment of me and our home. And of course, it means we remain in a welfare trap with a low income that cannot support a good life.

This is not what I dreamed of as I worked hard in my career when I was younger. This in fact, bears no resemblance to anything I imagined.

We are lucky, we have a home, I’m mobile, but ultimately the home needs a lot of work which I can’t afford. And no matter how hard I try, I don’t have the skills to complete it. I’ll have a go, but in my 50’s, feeling ill and exhausted, it’s often not possible to do more than I already am.

I feel proud of myself for getting through the day right now, but that is tinged with melancholy and thoughts of what my life should have been if it were true that hard work gets you places. It doesn’t, not always.

I laid a laminate floor though, and I replaced floorboards recently, so I guess I’m not done yet!

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28 Jan 2025
Q&A

Evelyn D

Key messages you’d share about how we work together on Changing Realities?

Hi. Just answering the big question of the week, thank you. I think that I having been on the project from the beginning. This feels really like we're in a really good place. I love the opportunities that come with the project, and it feels really important that we're sort of recognize that we all bring in different skill sets to create a collective experience of low income and poverty.



But our responses, and our experiences, are still different, and that is really helpful, I think, when you're working to South England with large groups of people, it can really balance out your own situation and it can really balance out how you feel and how you deal with things. There were teething problems at the beginning for me. There is obviously a power imbalance, and I think that acknowledging that, you know, in part, we can't change that—that is just the nature of what we're doing. You know, there is a paid team of researchers who are in a better position than we are, largely.

But I do believe, as well, that there are people on the project and on the research and stakeholders team, who have had either direct experience of what some of us as participants are going through and what I've been through. Or know someone. So, I think it's like not we're not as different as it might look to the outside, and it feels really important that we trust people and the process. And also feel psychologically safe to speak out if something isn't working, right? And I do think, largely, we sort of get that, really. This is really balanced in the project.

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28 Jan 2025
Q&A

Izzy V

Key messages you’d share about how we work together on Changing Realities?

The project is great for helping marginalised & isolated people feel included. Its great to know someone has your back, campaigning all the time for the better. Working together means people feel heard and seen, and there is a variety of ways to get involved (diary entries, blogs, big ideas meetings, speaking to the media, etc.) The flexibility of when and how to get involved, plus remote meetings, etc, really helps.

I think the only negative is also a positive - the remote meetings and flexibility both mean that people can be involved and work together towards the project's aims, even from different parts of the UK. But that also means you can't easily check-in with people to be sure they're ok, which possibly doesn't prevent the isolation and loneliness of being marginalised in the first place.

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28 Jan 2025
Q&A

Jake M

Key messages you’d share about how we work together on Changing Realities?

I believe that "unity is strength". If we work together, we able to change anything in our society. When we communicate with others, everyone can share there own opinions. In that case, we can make any decision easily.

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27 Jan 2025
Diary

Lexie B

In the middle of difficulty lies opportunity.



The month is ending soon, with love I greet everyone.

😀
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27 Jan 2025
Q&A

Lexie B

Key messages you’d share about how we work together on Changing Realities?

Good day everyone. I personally like the ways we’ve been working together, sharing our thoughts, ideas, and also making contributions on Zoom meetings - which makes me feel confident in answering questions wherever I find myself. Thank you.🙏

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27 Jan 2025
Q&A

Rudy G

Key messages you’d share about how we work together on Changing Realities?

Hello, everyone. My name is Paola. The key message? We can work together. We need to try, and we know. We never go down. We need to be looking for better jobs. We need to be looking for resources, speak with people, talking about what happened in our lives. What is our situation? How we can improve our conditions?



But we never fall down because is no way. If we fall down and we do not try to get up and continue, nobody will do it for us. And the situation is not changing, and we need to get better every day. We know, don't be down and stay down.

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27 Jan 2025
Q&A

Cara A

Key messages you’d share about how we work together on Changing Realities?

I like how we are communicating just now - making contributions and gaining insights on societal issues, and how to resolve them.

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