Our impact

I was owing well over £20,000. I hid it from anyone else, from everyone else, I didn’t even want to open my doors. So I shut my door, I shut my mind to everything else. It was that part of me that I just thought, ​“No, nobody needs to know.”

I used to work in the IT industry. I lost the job and then everything changed from there. And then I was offered another job in the school, which was part-time. So I had to just adjust myself based on what I was earning part-time and then the bills just started coming up. I hid it from anyone else, from everyone else, I didn’t even want to open my doors to friends just in case the bailiff turns up while they’re here. So I shut my door, I shut my mind to everything else. It was that part of me that I just thought, ​“No, nobody needs to know.” 

And the first time I actually spoke to somebody about it was with CAP and that felt very, very liberating. I was owing well over 20,000 pounds and the first option was paying it off monthly, which would take a long time and that would not be practical for me in terms of raising up my son. He would be a man. He would be a full grown man by that time, he’d probably have to pay for me as well, God forbid. But it would be a very long time and he would’ve been well in his twenties at that point. Because my debt was over a certain amount, the decision would be bankruptcy. And then I was told about the fees to actually file for the bankruptcy, which I did not have.

But I was also shocked to find out that the CAP has a bursary section to them where they get some generous people that donate and they will be able to actually raise that fund for me. And for them, I say a very deep thank you, a profound thank you for that. I wouldn’t be sitting here free and liberated, I would not have the chance to start all over again. If not for them, I wouldn’t have a new mindset or clarity to be the best that I need to be for myself and as a mother. There was no judgement, there was no condemnation. I tell you, literally, I slept differently that day, just knowing that there was somebody to listen. We got the green light to say that it’s been approved, the fees had been paid, and that I would be going bankrupt. This was in December and that was the best Christmas. 

I have a chance to become a better mother and actually train my son, my children, in a way that they should do it so that they don’t make the same mistakes. And I remember when I was in that gloomy stage, he would come up to me, pull up my cheeks, and say ​‘You need to smile, Mummy.’ And now he doesn’t have to do that anymore. And he actually noticed that and he said to me, ​‘Now Mum, I don’t even have to remind you to smile.’

To be debt free is very, very peaceful. It feels like heaven. It feels very, very liberating knowing that I have a second chance. I’m excited even talking about it.