About Credit Action Cymru
The key to healthy finances is to make spending match income. Sounds simple, but finance is often an area of struggle for many. To help people with this, Credit Action Cymru was set up by a group of Christians in Aberystwyth and aims to make financial guidance freely and widely available in the community.
Initially the intention was to start a project in Penparcau, a disadvantaged part of Aberystwyth in mid-Wales. The idea was to make financial self-help literature available free to those who needed it. However, it was decided there was a need to work bilingually using both the Welsh and English languages. One implication was that getting the literature translated into Welsh would not be cost-effective just for the local project; hence the decision to expand to work throughout Wales.
At this point contact was made with Credit Action who were well known as a respected financial education charity and who's President, Keith Tondeur, the Chairman of the Welsh group had met earlier in the year when Keith was speaking at a conference. It was obvious that the aims and objectives were complimentary, infact almost identical, and it was agreed for the group to come under the oversight of the charity and become Credit Action's Welsh arm. This relationship is set out in a memorandum of understanding.
Credit Action Cymru now has a group of volunteers trained as Budget Coaches (working in the Penparcau area) and four are trained to run Credit Action's IDEAL Budget Coaching in the Community course. This means people can now be trained as Budget Coaches throughout Wales. Credit Action Cymru is still committed to its original objective of making financial literature available to the community, but in addition also offers people help with their budgets. The hope is to inspire, train and support groups throughout Wales to undertake similar projects in their own communities.
If you would like more information about the services offered, or are interested in helping others and reaching out to your community, call on 0800 242 5844 or email cymru@creditaction.org.uk.
