Hackney Foodbank launches campaign to help tackle child poverty

Hackney Foodbank boss Pat Fitzsimons. Photograph: Hackney Foodbank

Hackney Foodbank has launched a campaign to raise £50,000 to provide emergency food and provisions for children in the borough. 

It is hoped the campaign, No Child Left Hungry, will help the 590 children who rely on the foodbank’s services each month. 

Jenna Fansa, Head of Fundraising at Hackney Foodbank, told the Citizen: “There is a generation of children who have grown up in foodbanks.

“Parents that we speak to now have often grown up in poverty. We really need to break that change and inspire children to have big dreams.

“We must all come together and donate so we can help their families out of poverty and give them the food they need so they can study and learn”.

Last year the English Indices of Deprivation found 16 per cent of Hackney’s neighbourhoods are classed as highly deprived.

What’s more, a staggering 64 per cent of children in the borough are living in income-deprived households, making it the second-worst area for child deprivation in England.

According to the anti-poverty social change organisation Joseph Rowntree Foundation (JRF), the problem has only become worse in recent times. Peter Matejic, the JRF’s chief analyst, said: “Poverty in the UK is still not just widespread, it is deeper and more damaging than at any point in the last 30 years”.

Now, Hackney Foodbank expects to give out more than £125,000 worth of emergency supplies and spend £50,000 on caseworker support for families.

Chair of Trustees, Fatima Habib, said: “Our team regularly meets malnourished families living in unsuitable accommodation and it’s becoming increasingly difficult to meet the huge need in our community”.

One family relying on the foodbank’s services is Tyler Munson and her two children. Their one-bed temporary accommodation is cramped, damp, and doesn’t have a working fridge. 

“Before the foodbank started helping me, there were days when I would go hungry so [my children] could eat”, Munson said.

Munson said she went hungry so her children could eat before she accessed the food bank’s support. Photograph: Tyler Muson

“It’s such hard work mentally and physically to be poor. We have been on a waiting list for a bigger, permanent flat for the past five years and could be waiting years to come”.

The foodbank caseworkers hope to provide Munson a grant for a new fridge. Her family’s story isn’t unique – many children face similar conditions across the borough.

“Our caseworkers do amazing work lifting households out of poverty – helping with benefits, grand applications, employment, and housing issues”, said Habib. 

Fansa told the Citizen that Hackney Foodbank urges people to ignore the “real stigma” around using their services and instead to see their support as a turning point. 

“Do not see it [coming for help] as hitting rock bottom, but instead as making things better. There is never any shame in asking for help”, she said. 

“It is our collective responsibility to help children have as normal a childhood as possible”.

Donate to the No Child Left Hungry campaign here.