Business
Funding shortage forces Didcot food bank to make changes
David GilyeatSouth of England
Didcot FoodbankVolunteers at a food bank say they are having to make changes to the services they offer because of a reduction in donations.
Didcot Emergency Foodbank was launched in 2009 by volunteers at Didcot Baptist Church but is down to reserves of about £10,000.
Manager Andrew Snell said: “This year to date we will have had £29,000 income in cash, and we will have spent close to £60,000 on food, so there’s a big gap there.”
Previously the food bank provided support to its clients twice a week for six weeks, with a three-month gap before another referral. It is now changing this to once a week for six weeks, followed by a longer six-month gap.
“We’ve gone back to being what we were before covid, which is an emergency food bank, as opposed to helping families on low incomes who are just about coping, or not quite coping,” Mr Snell explained.
The food bank receives about 75% of its donations via cash, and 25% from physical food donations, though five years ago it was the other way around.
“People were giving us the actual food but not so much in the way of money,” Mr Snell said.
“People were so generous in Didcot and the surrounding villages, they gave us more than we would ever need [during covid] and that’s where the reserve came from.”
GoogleThe food bank still expects to support about 6,000 clients this year.
Mr Snell said: “It’s been absolutely great to be able to help families who are on the borderline, and obviously we’ll regret not being able to do that in the immediate future.
“We’ll be looking at things as we go along to see if we can relax what we’ve put in place but that’s a little way down the line. It’s a matter of regret.”
He added: “I hope we’ll be able to increase the donations and go back to full-on help for people who are going to get a bit squeezed out at the moment.”
South Oxfordshire District Council’s community hub, Citizens Advice, schools and nurseries, medical practices, health visitors, housing associations and certain charities can officially refer people in need to the food bank.
As governments across the world restricted the movements of their citizens during Covid lockdowns from 2020, people spent more time online. We bought more online and socialised more online, and this brought us closer to the people who want to scam us. At the same time, realistic video impersonations, voices, websites, and texts became more commonplace, and scammers increased their use of social media including WhatsApp.
The conflict in the Middle East has caused rapid price rises for both petrol and diesel.
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NaBFID signs pact with PDCOR to expand advisory support for state projects – The Times of India
The National Bank for Financing Infrastructure and Development (NaBFID) has signed a Memorandum of Agreement with Projects Development Company of Rajasthan Limited (PDCOR) to strengthen advisory services for state and city-level infrastructure projects.The agreement will also allow both institutions to jointly explore financing and transaction advisory opportunities, including transaction structuring, commercial and technical due diligence, and support for financial closure of projects undertaken by state governments and urban local bodies across India, according to PTI.“This collaboration seeks to enhance access to long-term institutional finance for State Governments and Urban Local Bodies, while strengthening the infrastructure advisory and financing ecosystem,” Rajkiran Rai G., Managing Director of NaBFID, said.He added that the partnership would help both institutions jointly pursue project advisory opportunities, develop replicable financing frameworks, accelerate financial closures and mobilise capital across the infrastructure value chain.Monika Kalia, DMD-CFO, NaBFID, said the tie-up would leverage the strengths of both organisations to provide much-needed advisory support to states and urban local bodies for impactful urban infrastructure projects.Dileep Chingapurath, Chief Executive Officer, PDCOR, said the agreement would address the long-felt need for end-to-end professional support to structure and mobilise sustainable financing solutions, particularly for state governments and their agencies.“Through this collaboration, both institutions aim to enhance the quality of project preparation, mobilise institutional capital more effectively and accelerate the implementation of sustainable infrastructure projects across states and municipalities,” he said.NaBFID is a Development Financial Institution focused on long-term infrastructure financing, while PDCOR is an undertaking of the Government of Rajasthan.
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