Food is a fundamental human right, one that all children should have access to. Yet, the Borough of Tower Hamlets, sits at the highest rate of child poverty in London. Many families rely on the free school meal scheme to provide their children with a daily sustainable lunch, but with the national lockdown and the closing of schools, there has been a huge toll on families.
In joining Marcus Rashford's campaign, we were sponsored by Iqra International to provide food packages to free school meal families. We created food packages with the means to feed a family for a week. We supplied each family with the necessities, such as: cereal, biscuits, spaghetti, sweetcorn, beans, tea bags, squash, fizzy drinks, chocolate, crisps and instant mash.
We reached out to the community through Instagram, WhatsApp, Facebook and emailing schools and created a network of parents. On the 11th of November, we organised a time for collection, set up in Mile End Park. We had over 50 parents collected food packages from us. However, many families informed us that they would not be able to pick up due to illness or self-isolation, so we went one step further, and arranged a delivery service.
We successfully delivered all of our packages and fed many families. In the hopes that one day, Beyond the Bias can do this more often and has the ability to provide a service to thousands of homes. Food is not a privilege but necessity, and all should have an equal right to it.
“Thank you for your kind service. It has really helped my family. You are doing great work and providing a great support to the community.” Mum of 3, aged 45
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