Mix 92.6 Podcasts

Stacey Turner, founder of the local mental health charity It's OK to Say started to plan ways to help newly arrived evacuees from Kabul who were facing the trauma of their unplanned exit from their homeland .  She soon realised that many of them - having left Afghanistan in haste - had very real immediate needs for clothing and other essential items.  Stacey and her colleagues set up collection points around the city and within a matter of days local people had responded so overwhelmingly that they had to pause the programme - and also to ask for luggage (suitcases, backpacks etc) so that the evacuees could move on with their new belongings.  She explained how it came about and how it succeeded in this interview with Rob Pearman on Local Life.

John Mulholland, Trustee and Warehouse Manager at St Albans & District Foodbank, explains to Rob Pearman how the service works, how much it has increased over recent years (it now has six distribution points), and how the combination of increasing prices, the ending of the Covid uptick to Universal Credit and of the furlough scheme, plus announced increases in National Insurance may add to local requests for assistance - just at a time when the Foodbank has to move out of its current premises and find a new distribution warehouse by mid-November.  If you know of a suitable site, please contact [email protected] urgently. (Local Life - Sundays 8-9am and 6-7pm; Wednesdays 7-8pm.)