Church acts to help people in debt

Stanway Evangelical Church in Colchester has funded three of its members to work with charity Christians Against Poverty, offering debt help, essexcountystandard.co.uk reports.

The three members now provide free, confidential courses for people to help them `get to grips with their finances`.

Nigel Drew, one of the volunteers, said: "It`s about helping everyone to manage their money better - not necessarily just those who are in serious trouble.

"We want to help people look at their budget and understand if there is a problem or not, to prioritise their debts and work out repayments."

Martin Hill, another of the church`s volunteers, said: "We want to prevent people getting into debt in the first place, help those who are in debt and get them back in control."

A spokesperson at Gregory Pennington commented: "As the volunteers have stressed, it`s not just people with serious debt problems who could benefit from advice - plenty of people whose finances are already quite healthy could find that talking to a trained adviser really helps them manage their money better."