Award and £10,000 prize for Leeds debt help charity

Money Buddies picked up an award and the cash prize at the Centre for Social Justice (CSJ) national award ceremony in Westminster, London.

Prizes were presented by Work and Pensions Secretary Damien Green and Martin Lewis, television presenter and creator of MoneySavingExpert.com

Money Buddies started with one centre in Leeds in October 2014 and now has 20 centres with another four commissioned and due to open in February 2017.

Sylvia Simpson, Money Buddies project director, said: “We are very pleased and proud to be recognised by the Centre for Social Justice and are grateful for the award.

“I have been working in this industry involved in services providing money advice for over 20 years now, and face to face debt advice has never been in so much demand.”

“With the £10,000 awarded to us by CSJ, we can put this towards the Money Buddy project, which will allow us to develop more services for those who need it.”

Andy Cook, Chief Executive of the Centre for Social Justice, said: “Serious levels of personal debt can trap an individual or a family into a spiral of poverty from which it is very hard to recover.

“Money Buddies has demonstrated a major impact in terms of debt management and reduction in areas of high social and economic deprivation.”