June is Pride month, the worldwide celebration of LGBTQ+ communities

Leeds Pride is one of the biggest one-day festivals in the city. Organisers are expecting over 70,000 people to come together for a vibrant day of love, solidarity, and fabulous outfits. It’s Yorkshire’s most colourful celebration of pride in who you are, no matter who you love, whatever your sexual orientation or gender identity.

We’ve been enthusiastic supporters of the event for the past three years, encouraging our colleagues to celebrate and show support for the LGBTQ+ community, while promoting inclusivity and acceptance.

At Lowell, Pride is about more than having a fantastic time dancing in the streets.

Rainbow logos, flags and blogs like this help raise awareness and show our allyship of the LGBTQ+ community. It’s important to let people know that we’re on their side, that they’ve got our support and appreciation. That we’ve got their back.

But by itself, it’s not enough. True allyship is about what you do when the streets fall silent, the floats return to the day job, and the sequins and flags are put away for another year.

Inclusion, acceptance, and the embrace of diversity is something that happens 365 days a year at Lowell. These are qualities that run through everything we do – from how we recruit our wonderful people from diverse cultures, backgrounds, countries, ages, sexuality, and gender identities, to how we help the millions of people who find themselves struggling with debt.

Debt can happen to anyone. Even you.

Pride raises awareness about the importance of letting go of unconscious prejudices and biases; it urges people to stop making assumptions based on their own world view. 
When a new customer calls us, we don’t know their backstory, how they ended up in debt. Making that first call takes courage, due to the stigma and shame that many people still associate with debt.

But the lazy cliché that people get themselves into debt because they spend too much is generally untrue. In fact, 77% of customers tell us that they found themselves in financial difficulties simply because life just didn’t go to plan. Like losing their job, going through a breakup, dealing with an accident, or coping with long term illness.

We don’t make assumptions about any of our customers.

We don’t judge. We listen. We understand. We learn. We respect their story.
We’re all unique, with different experiences, different views, different talents and abilities, different loves and fears. That’s what makes us human. We get that at Lowell. We embrace it.

We’re proud to be a part of Leeds Pride. And we’re proud of the compassion and understanding we show people going through tough times. We see the person behind the debt. The name behind the numbers. We know how it feels to worry about where every penny’s coming from.

So if life ever deals you a bad card and you find yourself in debt with us, please don’t be scared to get in touch. There’s no shame in debt. We’re all just people trying to get along together. We won’t judge you. We only want to help. We’ll be here for you, whoever you are.

Published by Stephanie North-Shaw on 18th June, 2024