10:50am Tuesday 27th January 2009
By Dee Adcock
DEBT experts are pooling their knowledge in a bid to put the brakes on money misery in Dorchester.
They hope to alert people to act before money pressures tip over into debt.
The need to deal with problems at an early stage emerged during a Managing Money seminar organised by Dorchester Poverty Action Group.
Margaret Barker, chairman of the group, said: “Somehow we’ve got to get more help to those people, especially young women with young children.
“There’s a big group that are saddled with debt and can’t manage their money. We’ve got to find ways to get in and reach that group and help them.
“One of the big difficulties is that people don’t see their problem coming. They don’t realise they are heading into debt and should do something about it at an early stage.
“How do you tell people that they need help before they can see it?”
One suggestion was to introduce a storyline on debt and money management into a TV soap to get the message across.
Dr Barker said the organisers would be holding a follow-up meeting to explore ideas and suggestions. Among them was the possibility of setting up a food bank in Dorchester.
Dr Barker said: “There was talk of this a few years ago but it wasn’t really thought necessary before – perhaps it is now. One of the churches looked into it and decided not to. It’s a big commitment and the feeling perhaps was that there was not the demand for it in Dorchester.
“It might be different now.”
John Hilton, who chaired the seminar, said the event drew together representatives from organisations across the local community.
He said: “It was very informative and useful. No big initiative has been decided but there were a lot of smaller suggestions that could be useful and worth looking into.
“For example, there are already people working in this sort of thing and the next stage could be to create a data base where people could find out what others are doing.
“One of the more radical questions was whether society needs to change its culture from having it now to waiting to save before buying something. I think it’s unlikely that Dorchester by itself would be able to do that.”
He added: “The Poverty Action Group is good at identifying needs and filling those gaps. I think something positive could come out of this.”
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