QSA helps Guardian cover funeral poverty
Quaker Social Action helped The Guardian to highlight funeral poverty last week
Quaker Social Action (QSA) was involved in a video shown on The Guardian website last week highlighting the misery of funeral poverty. The film covers the harrowing journey of Amanda as she tries to arrange her son Rahim’s funeral. After days spent chasing funeral homes and faced with unaffordable funeral costs, sometimes reaching £10,000, she sought advice from QSA who helped her secure funding.
Claire Brandon, manager of QSA’s ‘Down to Earth’ programme, told the Friend they worked closely with The Guardian, providing information ‘on the funeral poverty we see first-hand through our Down to Earth service. Amanda was one of our clients who was willing to share her journey’.
The video shows Amanda talking about her ordeal following her twenty-one-year-old son’s death. She described the ‘battle’ she had to go through as having ‘a huge impact on my life… It was so painful and the worst thing was not having time to grieve’. She says in the video: ‘The whole funeral process should be much more straightforward… there should be a public office’ with checks on funeral homes and the fees they charge.
Claire Brandon said: ‘It is so important for people to see and understand the devastating impact of funeral poverty as sadly this story is not at all unique. Funeral costs are rising rapidly; there has been a cumulative price rise of 122 per cent since 2004, and the average funeral cost now stands at £4,271, meaning one in eight people will struggle to pay for a funeral (SunLife Cost of Dying Report, 2018). We are continuing to work with government and the funeral industry to change the landscape for those like Amanda.’
