Urgent appeal as Sufra Food Bank demand rockets as a consequence of new benefit cuts

Mohammed S Mamdani, Director of Sufra NW London, writes a lively Newsletter to supporters of the food bank and food growing project. His personal message is often humorous but beneath the humour lies anger at the injustice he sees through his work at Sufra.

Here is his latest message:

 Forgive my sarcasm, but I can just imagine the Department for Work & Pensions’ delight, three weeks into the latest round of benefit cuts. Cuts that will save mere pennies in the big scheme of things and penalise thousands of children with a life of poverty.

So what's it all about this time round? Until recently low-income families have received child tax credits to support the upbringing of a new generation. Now that we’re chucking out EU migrants, we desperately need to start reproducing so that we have a home-grown crop of economically active workers to pay for the social care of our elderly folk.

However, as of 6 April, families will only receive tax credits for their first 2 children, with no regard for any additional children in the family. It's a kind of state-sponsored baby sanction! The only consolation is that victims of rape will be entitled to additional tax credits - but you’re going to have to prove it!

I can just hear you sniggering. Most rape victims can hardly fathom reporting their violation to the police. Now you've got to tell the random dude who sits in the job centre too.

It's a double whammy since Her Majesty has also cut widows allowance (and the accompanying payments to a child who has suffered the bereavement of a parent). So, when your darling suffers a heart attack and drops down dead, don't grieve for too long. Wipe away those tears and be in work by Monday morning.

But why should British tax-payers pay for the upkeep of other people’s children?

Because children who grow up in poverty perform less well in school and have a lower life expectancy than their peers. And with the NHS crisis and a new funding formula for schools that will result in teacher redundancies, it will end up costing the nation more to deal with in the long-term.

Let’s not forget that hundreds of thousands of WORKING families rely on child tax credits. Parents who slog day and night, often in service industries or low skilled work. With almost all their wages covering the rent, child tax credits put food on the table.

And why are we subsidising working parents? So that we can continue to enjoy cheap take-outs, cheap clothing and cheap entertainment. Since we won’t pay more for goods and services, employers refuse to pay a sustainable, living wage. It is impossible to support a family, whilst earning the minimum wage (which equates to an annual income of £13,650). We’re paying for other people’s children, because we’re screwing them over in the work-place.  

I accept that some parents are ‘irresponsible’ in their life-style choices (they are far fewer than the tabloids would make us believe). But why should we punish their children?

OK, I’ve got that off my chest now.

URGENT FOOD APPEAL

As you can imagine, demand at the Food Bank has skyrocketed. Looking around our storage facility, all you see are empty shelves. We’re surviving from one week to another.

I have no shame in dropping to my knees and begging you for your generous food donations. We need practically everything: long-life milk, tea (we’ve never been short on tea before!), biscuits, juice, rice, jam, cereal, instant noodles, soup, tinned fish, fruit and vegetables, toiletries, nappies… you get the drift.

The only items WE DON’T NEED are pasta (but yes to pasta sauce), baked beans and tinned chick peas.

If you can’t be bothered to head down to Lidl, like me, you can place an online order for delivery to us, or make a donation here towards our food budget. We promise that any donation made on this page will be restricted to food bank supplies. No admin costs.

VOLUNTEERS FOR SUPERMARKET COLLECTION

We’ve scheduled two emergency food collections at local supermarkets, but we need volunteers who can help for a few hours on the day to distribute ‘shopping lists’ to guests, smile profusely and guilt them into making a food donation at the end of their shop.

Saturday/Sunday 13/14 May 2017
Sainsbury’s Willesden Green – Register here.

Saturday/Sunday 20/21 May 2017
Waitrose Brent Cross – Register here.

Fahim and Saba, who will oversee the collections, will be working across two weekends. That’s 19 days in a row without a day off. So please pity them, and help out.

Also, our youth volunteers, who normally assist with our supermarket collections, are all revising for exams, so it’s time for the oldies to step up.

INTERFAITH FOOD WASTE ‘IFTAR’

To mark Ramadan, we would like to invite members of the community to an interfaith ‘food-waste’ iftar (the fast-breaking meal at sunset) at Sufra NW London on Saturday 2 June from 8:00pm.

The event will be an opportunity to see our work first hand, and celebrate our strong relationship with all of North-West London’s faith communities who sustain the food bank operation. Faith leaders from all denominations will also share their faith-inspired, ethical perspectives on food waste.

The event will conclude with a meal prepared entirely from food waste! And it’s free to attend. You can register here.

AND FINALLY…

We need to borrow a cement mixer for a couple of weeks on the garden, so if you have one handy (like we all do), please get in touch.

I accuse the Coalition of knowingly increasing child poverty

Blurb of 'Born to Fail?' 1973

A month or so ago during morning play at a local primary school a 5 year old boy came up to me, rubbing his stomach looking at me with pleading eyes, and saying 'I'm hungry'.

Sympathetic school staff  found some biscuits and fruit to keep him going until dinner time. Apparently it wasn't the first time he had made that appeal. 

Inevitably schools are the first to see the direct impact of economic pressure on families, not just hunger but inadequate clothing, worn out shoes, tiredness caused by lack of sleep through living in one room in a bed and breakfast or shared housing. We are also seeing children disappearing from the school roll as they are rehoused out of London away from family and support systems.

Although the Coalition is keen to shift the blame on to 'work shy' families, fecklessness and dependency culture in an effort to divide and rule the working class, the truth is that 62% of children currently in poverty have one working parent. However the Coalition  seem determined to punish children for the perceived sins of their parents.

Coalition policies including the Housing Benefit cap, the Universal Benefit cap, and the move to restrict child benefit to the  first two children, will reduce disposable income and thus amount available to buy food.

The Coalition are taking food out of children's mouths.

There has been some progress recently in closing the gap in educational achievement between the poor and the rich, a gap so vividly illustrated by the National Children's Bureau in 'Born to Fail' in 1973. More recently the Child Poverty Action Group has listed the impact of child poverty:

• There are 3.6 million children living in poverty in the UK today. That’s 27 per cent of children, or more than one in four.
• There are even more serious concentrations of child poverty at a local level: in 100 local wards, for example, between 50 and 70 per cent of children are growing up in poverty.
• Work does not provide a guaranteed route out of poverty in the UK. Almost two-thirds (62 per cent) of children growing up in poverty live in a household where at least one member works.
• People are poor for many reasons. But explanations which put poverty down to drug and alcohol dependency, family breakdown, poor parenting, or a culture of worklessness are not supported by the facts.
• Child poverty blights childhoods. Growing up in poverty means being cold, going hungry, not being able to join in activities with friends. For example, 62 per cent of families in the bottom income quintile would like, but cannot afford, to take their children on holiday for one week a year.
• Child poverty has long-lasting effects. By 16, children receiving free school meals achieve 1.7 grades lower at GCSE than their wealthier peers. Leaving school with fewer qualifications translates into lower earnings over the course of a working life.
• Poverty is also related to more complicated health histories over the course of a lifetime, again influencing earnings as well as the overall quality – and indeed length - of life. Professionals live, on average, eight years longer than unskilled workers.
• Child poverty imposes costs on broader society – estimated to be at least £25 billion a year. Governments forgo prospective revenues as well as commit themselves to providing services in the future if they fail to address child poverty in the here and now.
• Child poverty reduced dramatically between 1998/9-2010/12 when 1.1 million children were lifted out of poverty (BHC).This reduction is credited in large part to measures that increased the levels of lone parents working, as well as real and often significant increases in the level of benefits paid to families with children.
• Under current government policies, child poverty is projected to rise from 2012/13 with an expected 300,000 more children living in poverty by 2015/16.This upward trend is expected to continue with 4.2 million children projected to be living in poverty by 2020.

The last Labour government pledged to reduce child poverty with some limited success and the goal was supposed to have cross-party support. Clearly the Coalition is going in the opposite direction.

'Born to Fail' in 1973 concluded:

...if it is accepted that many parents are expected to cope with impossible burdens and that their material circumstances provide a major contribution to those burdens then there is much to be said for tackling  more earnestly the poor housing and low income that our study has revealed, Arguably it could eliminate a large part of many families' difficulties. And on humanitarian grounds alone large numbers of children need a better chance to grow, develop, learn and live that they currently received...

Are we more interested in a bigger national cake so that some children get a bigger slice eventually - or are we ready for disadvantaged children to have a bigger slice now even if as a result our personal slice is smaller. 

How many of our pleasures are bought at the expense of the disadvantaged.

It is not just the immediate hunger that a child might feel today but the way that will affect their life chances in terms of education attainment, health and income. For society it raises questions about polarisation, alienation, disaffection and conflict.

In 2011 the Institute for Fiscal Studies in Child and Working Age Poverty 2010-2014 modelling the changes ahead in welfare and fiscal policy concluded:

The results therefore suggest that there can be almost no chance of eradicating child poverty - as defined in the Child Poverty Act - on current government policy.

 

Although this project did not assess what policies would be required in order for child poverty to be eradicated, it is impossible to see how relative child poverty could fall by so much in the next 10 years without changes to the labour market and welfare policy, and an increase in the amount of redistribution performed by the tax and benefit system, both to an extent never before seen in the UK. IFS researchers have always argued that the targets set in the Child Poverty Act were extremely challenging, and the findings here confirm that view. It now seems almost incredible that the targets could be met, yet the government confirmed its commitment to them earlier this year, in its first Child Poverty Strategy, and remains legally-bound to hit them.

There is no shortage of evidence about the damage that is currently being done and that will increase over the next few years.  The only conclusion I can reach is that the Coalition  is prepared to see children suffer as they pursue their aim to destroy the welfare state.

Brent Council seeks views on tackling child poverty

The high number of children in  most deprived wards

Click image to enlarge

Brent Council yesterday launched a consultation on its draft child poverty strategy. The Government requires each local authority to have such a strategy in place in 2011. The Council is keen to have feedback on any gaps in  the information they provide which will enable them to refine the final strategy. The consultation is aimed at council staff, community groups and young people.

Some key facts:

• Brent has become more deprived. It was the 35th most deprived borough in 2010 compared with 53rd previously.
• The highest rates of child poverty are in Stonebridge ward, Harlesden and South Kilburn. There are pockets of deprivation in other parts of the borough including in the south of Welsh Harp ward which was not deemed as deprived four years ago.
• Overall there  are up to 23,000 children (34.1%) in Brent living in poverty according the the Child Wellbeing Index.
• The numbers of children eligible for Free School Meals is a good indicator of poverty. The national average is 15.9% but Stonebridge 44.2%, Harlesden 38.7%, Dollis Hill 33.4%, Kilburn 33.2%, Dudden Hill 31% were much higher compared with Kenton at 11.6%.
• 72% of homeless cases have children or are pregnant. (This is likely to get worse when the housing benefit cap is fully implemented early next year). There has been a recent increase in the number of young Somali people who are homeless.
• There is lower educational attainment in early years and schools compared with London and national averages and lower attainment evident in some Black African and African Caribbean children.
• The highest number of lone parents is highest in Harlesden (570) and Stonebridge (560) compared with 95 in Northwick Park and 60 in Kenton
• Unemployment is highest in the most deprived areas with a Brent average of 9.3% compared with 8.7% in London and 7.7% nationally
• 7.6% of Jobseekers Allowance claimants are 18-24 years old compared with 6.7% in London and 6.9% nationally
• The Tellus Survey showed that lack of aspiration and fears about future prospects including jobs, further education and money are concerns amongst most young people and parents.

The consultation report says that Brent Council is responding to this situation by:

• Completing a child poverty needs assessment
• Drafting a strategy
• Consulting on the strategy

The Council gives its child poverty vision as:

For no children or young people to be disadvantaged by poverty by 2021 in Brent. Over the next decade we will ensure that each child has the best possible start in life and not be disadvantaged by family circumstance or background by breaking the cycle of deprivation

The problem is of course in achieving this vision against the back of Coalition policies whose overall impact, despite innovations such as the pupil premium, are increasing child poverty through reducing benefits, the housing benefit cap, and reducing the number of public sector jobs. The Council's own scope for initiative is clearly limited by the cuts in local authority funding and some of the cuts and higher charges they have made as a result will also impact on families and educational provision.

Faced with the statistics and the reality of  Coalition policies the objectives outlined in the consultation document  seem well-meaning but lacking in establishing a clear, practical policy direction. 'But how?' keeps coming into your mind:

Our objectives for 2021

1. To provide a safe and secure environment where all children are respected and cared for so that they grow into successful and responsible people.

2. To ensure all children have a happy life and life style to be able to progress and thrive.

3. To provide children with the best possible education in an environment where they can thrive; socially, emotionally, physically and intellectually.  

4. To ensure all children are happy, confident and ambitious capable to aim high and achieve what ever they aspire to.

The officers concerned hope that by establishing an over-arching framework they will enable different Council departments to produce more detailed plans. The consultation will be longer than usual and will involve 15 face to face meetings with various stakeholders covering the full range of provision.

The diagram below shows the framework:

Click on image to enlarge

The consultation itself is qualitative and asks open-ended questions including What are the causes of poverty? and In a ideal world what actions could be take to a. prevent children from living in poverty and b. deal with those who are already in poverty? There are 13 questions in all so whoever writes this up will have an enormous job to do as some of the questions invite mini-essays in response!

The consultation website is HERE and a PDF of the consultation document is HERE
The consultation closes on September 26th and comments should be sent to andrea.lagos@brent.gov.uk