The Herald - The Herald Magazine
Bringing hope to Ferguslie Park
HOW AN IDEA FROM ONE OF THE POOREST COUNTRIES IN THE WORLD COULD TRANSFORM THE POOREST PART OF SCOTLAND
THERE’S a label on Ferguslie Park and it’s a pretty hard one to remove. You probably know what it says: “deprivation”, “early deaths”, “the poorest part of Scotland”.
Jamie Mallan, who works in the area, remembers the first time he came here. He got in a taxi and said: “Ferguslie Park, please,” and the driver sucked air through his teeth and shook his head. “You don’t want to go there,” he said. Because that’s how labels work: they stick and do damage.
However, within a few minutes of arriving in Ferguslie Park, in the north-west of Paisley, I spot another label. It’s on the wall of the community centre and it’s spelled out in purple, blue and yellow letters: “Feegie wummin are a breed o ther ain”.
Laura Connor, who is a Feegie woman, takes me over to the poster and stands in front of it for a photograph. This is more like it, she says. A label to stick on top of the other one.
I’m going to be talking more to Connor today, and to Mallan, and to other people about how you can start to change all of this and improve Ferguslie Park and the lessons come fast: names, words and descriptions matter; the biggest impact of poverty is not financial, it’s psychological; often the best people to fix poverty are women, not men.
And then there’s this lesson: Scotland might be one of the richest countries in the world, but an idea from one of the poorest countries might have something important to teach us.
The idea started in India and involves setting up groups of people to save small amounts of money each week. Self-reliant groups, as they’re called, can give small loans to members in times of crisis; the members of the group also use the money to develop small businesses, which can in time generate an income.
The money saved each week could be as little as 50p, but the theory is that if you get a lot of individuals together, you can start to make a difference to a community.
I saw the idea working for myself a few years ago when I was in Bangladesh. Travelling with Christian Aid, I went to the Gopalgonj district of the country and sat in on a meeting of a self-reliant group in one of the villages. It’s hard to forget what the women said.
One told me that when they were individuals they were like single sticks that could break. “But when we are united,” she said, “we cannot break.” Most of the women had set up little businesses selling handicrafts and it was starting to make a difference.
But could the idea work here in Scotland, where the circumstances are different? That’s what I’m in Ferguslie Park to find out and Connor is keen to tell me more about the small business she’s started to sell home-made soaps. The 37-year-old grew up in Cumbernauld but has lived in Ferguslie for 11 years.
She has sometimes struggled with self-confidence. She was born with a dislocated hip so has struggled with disability her whole life. Finding work has also not been easy. In recent years she’s applied for many, many jobs but has been unsuccessful. She says herself: “I needed something in my life.”
Her partner also does not work so money is tight. Connor has two sons, one four and one ten years old, and she often has to say no to them. One of them wanted a game the other day at £4.99, but she had to say he couldn’t have it.
She has to budget to within an inch of her life to survive on the benefits she receives. “My oldest understands the situation,” she says. “He will ask for stuff and try his luck but it’s about saying no, you can’t get that.”
Connor says the self-reliant group to which she belongs has started to change that situation, albeit in a small way.
She pays for the materials for her soaps by saving small amounts – the set-up cost was around £100 – and has now sold some of them through her Facebook page and events at the Tannahill community centre. It all has to be balanced with her benefits because any earnings can have an effect on them, but the small amounts are making a difference – and not just financially.
“I was getting frustrated with life,” says Connor. “But I’m happier now. I’m a person again. We all bounce off each other at the group. And we support each other. I had no confidence but I’ve had a lot of support and I know they’ll be there for me.”
WHAT Connor says pretty much gets to the heart of the idea of self-reliant groups; it also raises some surprising truths about poverty that don’t have much to do with money, although no one is denying the reality of the financial situation for many people in the area.
Mallan, who works for Ferguslie Park Housing Association, says the financial crash of ten years ago meant services simply disappeared from Ferguslie Park. He’s also very worried about the introduction of universal credit.
“We’re hearing stories of single parents having their benefits cut, just chopped,” he says. “We’re hearing stories of individuals who have been unemployed and are going to have to wait four weeks for any payments. We’re hearing stories of children having their disability living allowance cut but their disability is still there.
“I’m really scared about the changes that are taking place.”
But Mallan and others say that it’s not all about money and that there’s a big psychological and mental element to poverty.
“Millions upon millions of pounds has been pumped into Ferguslie Park to help regenerate it and develop it,” he says, “but the issues we face are complex and constantly changing.
“The things that really make the area deprived is health and access to services. People don’t go to the doctor when they should. Life expectancy is much lower and as people get older they have more and more conditions.
“But I think part of it is the psyche that for the past 30 years you’ve been told you’re the most deprived community in Scotland. Why should you raise your expectations?”
Professor John McKendrick of Glasgow