Citizens Advice celebrates 80th Anniversary

Monday 09 September 2019

The Guernsey branch of the Citizens Advice Bureau is celebrating its 80th anniversary as part of its 2019 Awareness Week.

Citizens Advice Guernsey’s 2019 Awareness Week is running from 9 September, and the charity is aiming to make more islanders aware of the free and confidential advice service that is available to all through the local office.

Interim CEO Kerry Ciotti explained: "We’re receiving more enquiries than ever. What that tells us is that islanders’ lives are becoming ever more complex, and those people who already know about us are using us more. What we want to do this week is to let even more islanders know who we are and how we can help."

Citizens Advice Guernsey received more than 11,000 enquiries in 2018, either by telephone or through client visits to the bureau. The charity has a management team of four part-time, paid staff, with a volunteer team of some 80 islanders, including the Friends of Citizens Advice, who run the charity shop on the Bridge.

Pictured: Trained volunteer advisers offer clients advice on a broad range of issues, including employment, housing, discrimination, debt and relationships.

Mrs Ciotti added: "It’s free, friendly, impartial and completely confidential, and for a great many islanders, including guest workers, it’s the only place they can turn to for help. This week we want more people to know that we are here and ready to help them, whatever problems they are facing."

The first 200 Citizens Advice Bureaux opened their doors in September 1939, in London, on the outbreak of World War II, to help members of the public to understand wartime regulations and restrictions. Citizens Advice Guernsey has a unique link to those early days of the charity.

"One of our specialist Money Advisers, Ivone Jones, has been volunteering here for 24 years. His uncle, Harry Riley, was one of the original, pioneering CAB volunteers, who ran a Bureau from his front room in Bexhill, helping people deal with the everyday challenges of the home front. He volunteered for CAB for 28 years and it’s amazing to think that the Guernsey bureau has a living link to the start of what is now a major national charity, with more than 21,000 trained volunteers who have helped 2.7 million people nationwide since the start of 2018."

Pictured: Citizens Advice Guernsey is located at Bridge Avenue, St Sampson and is open on weekdays. Trained advisers can also be contacted by telephone, by calling 242266. 

Mr Ivone Jones started volunteering for Citizens Advice Guernsey when the local bureau was located in Smith Street, before moving to its current location on The Bridge. He said that he still gets a lot of satisfaction from volunteering as a Money Adviser: "it’s always rewarding when you can help someone to solve a problem that is overwhelming them, as financial difficulties can so often do. Sometimes the process can be frustrating, but I always try not to give up on people. We are often the only people they can turn to, so we do everything we can."

Pictured top: Ivone Jones, a long-serving volunteer with Citizens Advice Guernsey, whose uncle was a founding CAB volunteer 80 years ago with Interim CEO Kerry Ciotti.