Sign Jack Munroe’s petition and help people like Theresa…

What happens when you live in London and are working three  low paid part-time jobs,  only one of which offers paid leave? Then on top of that daily struggle, your daughter starts having psychotic episodes and you have to take time away from work?

This was the experience of  Theresa  (not her real name), who came into this London food bank on Friday.

Theresa is a single mum who recently had to give up work for a few weeks when her youngest – a 19 year old –  had a psychotic breakdown.  She combines bar work, cleaning and acting as a midday supervisor in a school, but the school is the only job offering her some paid leave.  So caring for her daughter through the worst of her illness plunged Theresa into an immediate financial crisis.

Those weeks with hardly any money worsened an already precarious financial situation. Her income is £439 a month, while her rent is £192 a month.She spends £10 on electricity and £15 on gas each week (British Gas is the provider for both) and she pays as she goes using a card. She now has credit card debts of £1,500,  council tax arrears of £400-500 and rent arrears of about £300. She also has to tackle working and child tax credit over-payments of £994.

This situation has pushed Theresa and her daughter into food poverty. Her daughter’s care coordinator at the local mental health trust spotted the severity of the situation and was able give her a voucher to take to this London food bank – one of  a network of nearly 400 set up by the Trussell Trust in partnership with churches and communities. As well as supplying the emergency bags of food, we were able to offer Theresa some contact details for the local branch of debt counsellors  Christians Against Poverty and another local debt counselling organisation. We also gave her contact details for the council’s welfare advice service and information about the council’s hardship fund.

Theresa has little choice but to live off her credit card, much as she loathes to do this.

Today, the Trussell Trust launched Give our Kids a Christmas, in partnership with the Mirror and the union Unite. The appeal is to raise funds to help food banks give foodboxes to families in crisis like Theresa’s.

This is a brilliant campaign, but we need to tackle the causes of the inequities that leave people like Theresa and her daughter struggling to eat. Why, for example, does the UK have a massive problem with low pay, with one in five employees low paid in 2012? See the Resolution Foundation report on this. Terrible as it is for the young, older lives are also being blighted. Nearly half of the low paid are aged between 31 and 60.

Food poverty campaigner Jack Munroe   has today  – in tandem with this Christmas food bank appeal – launched a petition via Change.org calling for Parliament to debate the causes of UK hunger. Why is food bank use increasingly so rapidly?

Details of the petition are here. It’s already got nearly 44,000 supporters. Sign it, please.

Help feed people in need appeal now underway!

At this London food bank, volunteers are getting down to Tesco today to encourage local donations during the three-day nationwide collection of emergency food.  Lots of new volunteers are helping with this wonderful event running at Tesco stores throughout the country.

The Trussell Trust is partnering with Tesco and Fareshare to hold the food collection.  The aim is to ensure its network of food banks can provide emergency food to more local people in crisis. Someone in your street or round the corner from you could benefit from your donation this weekend. Donate a can or two of food at your local Tesco store today, tomorrow (November 30th) or Sunday (December 1st). By doing this you can stop someone going hungry in your area.

One of the people being helped in our London food bank today was Theresa (not her real name), 49.  She’s working three low-paid part-time jobs, but had to give up work for a couple of  weeks recently because her 19 year old daughter is experiencing psychosis. Theresa, who has no partner, only gets paid leave/holiday pay in one of her jobs. But she had no choice other than to be there to support her daughter through a critical time. Theresa, who had to rush off to make it on time for one of her jobs,  says: “It’s very hard. Lack of money is the cause of everything, but I can’t show stress in front of my daughter, as she can’t cope with it. It does affect me though. My daughter is getting better, but it’s a long process.”

The donations made during major food collections such as the one this weekend will go directly towards making life a bit better for people like Theresa.

This is the Trussell Trust’s second nationwide supermarket collection, and Tesco is the first national supermarket to partner with food banks. Tesco will “top-up” your food donations by 30 per cent, making your gift go even further. It’s heartening that Tesco has recognised the level of need, as more and more individuals and families hit a crisis.  The Trussell Trust says it is “so excited that the UK’s largest supermarket has caught our vision and is working with us and Fareshare to fight food poverty”.

All food donated at Tesco food bank collections will go directly to the local food bank to help local people in need.

Unemployed Mother Told To Take Degree Off CV By JobCentre Staff

samedifference1's avatarSame Difference

Readers, this mother, Rachel Sawford, hasn’t revealed a disability. However, I am sharing this article because something like this could so easily happen to anyone.

I have a degree myself, and if it was me, I would feel that all my struggles for an education were worth very little if I was not allowed to reveal my achievements when it should matter the most. This is exactly why I, personally, am scared of JobCentres, and thankful that I only claim DLA.

Are benefit claimants not human? Do we not have a right to an education? Someone needs to remind Jobcentre staff that not everyone who goes to university can go to Oxbridge and get a job immediately afterwards.

A mother who escaped an abusive relationship to get a degree was told to remove it from her CV by Jobcentre staff to avoid ‘scaring off’ employers.

Rachel Sawford, 29, proudly told…

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