Aber-T

Today Sarah, Nick, his fiancée Naomi and I went up to the church in Abertillery where we do the Thursday night youth group. It was a gorgeous day and the first time Sarah and I had seen it in the daylight. Sadly this photo doesn't do it justice really, somehow i managed to be in all the best photos and didn't take them which is weird, i generally manage to stay the other side of the camera!

But it was great to see it all, and really brought all the facts about the area to life, meeting more of the people and seeing all the rows of houses and the town. For those who don't know, Abertillery is part of 'The South Wales Valleys' - an area with some of the highest rates of crime, unemployment, drug and alcohol abuse, depression and poverty in Europe. Of the 10 top towns in Britain with the highest % of the population on antidepressents 7 are in the Valleys. It really is essentially a first world slum.

Take Abertillery for instance, a population of about 11,000 all crammed into this relatively small area in predominantly 1 up 1 down style mining houses. I don't know exactly the rate of unemployment but something very high. There are no jobs in the Valleys themselves really and for the people in Abertillery the nearest train station is 3 miles away, so even getting out to go to a job would be a problem.

Hardly anyone moves away simply because they cannot afford to, with the most houses being worth under 50,000. Compare that to the rest of the country you see the issue! And yes, the majority of people are living under the poverty line but as i learnt in Kenya, poverty is not merely material and there are people in the Valleys who are impoverished in so many ways.

I'm not really sure where all that is leading, i just find it interesting to think over, it's fairly humbling in the same way that many of my experiences in Kenya were, as I realise again that my life and circumstances though not in any way very luxurious are actually just that compared to so many people, even people just a few miles up the road...