Amber is a member of the Sutton Trust COSMO Youth Panel.
COVID-19 came as a wave that shocked the world, giving me and my family no time to prepare for what was to come. With school being interrupted and all social events being cancelled, my life changed completely. Although I thankfully did not have to face loss due to the virus, I still face many issues coming out of the pandemic including one of the most common problems of the pandemic: financial issues.
The economic and financial impacts of the pandemic were the main struggle for my family. We were already receiving state benefits and free school meals, and once the pandemic swept over the UK our reliance on them ended up increasing. Coming from a single parent household, my mother worked two jobs to keep our family afloat. However, this changed during the pandemic, as my mother received a call from one of her jobs telling her she had been made redundant. This meant my mum was struggling to afford to feed our family and was often not at home, as she was forced to work full-time as a carer for my nan without being paid.
