In our final APLE meeting of 2020 we talked about some of the years work and our successes: – The Digital Divide campaign, The International day for the eradication of poverty, growing as a collective and finalising our plans for the year ahead. 

Although 2020 has been tough for us all we have achieved so much as a collective, we have missed coming together but worked hard to make things happen through zoom, emails, and calls, we are immensely proud of what we have achieved so far. 

We have a busy year ahead of us, knowing what we have already achieved means we can only be stronger than ever in 2021, We plan to grow the membership by inviting other groups with lived experience to join us, this is an opportunity to amplify each other’s voices, there will also be an opportunity to have a guest blog featured on our social media channels as we will be releasing 12 blogs in the new year.

From January, our calendar of events and photos will be available on our website, this is an opportunity to look at what each member organisation has planned and links on how to get involved.

We will relaunch the digital divide campaign, looking at what has changed across the UK to make life easier for those who have been digitally excluded, but continue with the campaign so that no one is left behind.

We will continue to learn new skills and build on existing skills through our Learning Together subgroup, training, and workshops themes to be agreed, we will develop a plan to create a co-production knowledge bank

We will start the planning for The International Day for the Eradication of poverty in June (Get in touch if you want to find out more or get involved at www.aplecollective.com) This is a day where we take over conversation to amplify the fantastic work of groups, organisations and individuals who have lived experience of poverty, we share this through lighting u the Uk map, and supporting others to have their voices heard and showing achievements and affecting change.

Our APLE Collective month will be in June, whereby we have a series of events, training, and activities for the full month, showcasing the work of individual member organisations the work of APLE and other organisations work. We will also launch the policy press book; we also hope we can all come together as a collective at Frimhurst.  

Here are some of the hopes for the future from some of our members:

”2021 will be amazing, look at what we have achieved so far” -Corrina, Thrive.

“Watch out 2021 because we are coming back and fighting poverty”, Amanda, ATD Fourth World.

“2020 has been hard and we have realised the new normal isn’t for everyone, but 2021 brings chance to make the world better for everyone” Phil, Expert Citizens.

“The rich never give, we have to earn never to give in”, Kath, Thrive.