Save the Children - Keighley
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Working with Save the Children I started a project on the effects of austerity on some of the poorest communities in the UK. We visited the town of Keighley in Yorkshire to record the lives of three young families. This is the story of two of them--break--.
Vicky and Dean have been together for several years and with used to be regular heroin users. It's one of the biggest blights for many of the families in Keighley. The jobs go and the dealers move in. When you've got nothing to do heroin fills the space, getting the money for it, taking it, coming down from it and then out again trying to get the cash for the next hit. Vicky and Dean are desperate to leave that behind and have been working hard to bring their two children up, James and Bailey. Save the Children have been very active in supporting them and helping them with housing and money issues. Dean is the main carer and is totally dedicated to bring up his two boys in a loving and caring environment. This he does by the bucket full and he's a bit of a hero down at the Childrens Centre because of it. As far as jobs go Deans applied for 250 over the last year. Not one company returned any correspondence with him.
Unfortunately Dean and Vicky split up but both still share looking after the kids.
Laura and Lee have had a rocky relationship but are now trying to make a go of it for the sake of their three children (names withheld). It's hard for them as both have been trying to get work for years and even when Lee was down to the last 5 for 3 vacancies the company again just never even bothered to let him know he hadn't got the job. It was to work in a warehouse on minimum wage but it was a job. It gets them both down and when I returned for my third visit the family had fallen apart and the children were being looked after by their grandmother.

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