World Food Life

Children missing meals during pandemic

Nearly two million children have skipped meals this year as a result of the coronavirus pandemic, according to think tank The Social Market Foundation (SMF). Findings from its Measuring and mitigating child hunger in the UK report released in December, and which surveyed 1,000 parents, show that almost one in six families (16%), said children had to skip meals, make do with smaller portions or go a day without food between March and September. Child hunger has been increasingly in the spotlight in recent months, following a high-profile campaign launched by Premier League footballer Marcus

Rashford earlier this year. This called on the Government to extend free school meals to children from low-income families during school holidays in England. Aveek Bhattacharya, chief economist at Social Market Foundation said: “The stark evidence in this report shows that the challenge of food insecurity and child hunger is even greater and more urgent than many observers had thought and feared. The idea of a single child going short of food is heartbreaking but our evidence shows that almost 2 million children have been in that awful situation this year.”

Community spirit

“We are running the same initiative over Christmas,” explains the restaurant’s marketing manager Azin Jafari. “We are working with Educare Family Support Services Ealing to provide all the puddings for their Christmas hampers. We will also be providing Christmas tray bakes consisting of a Persian twist on Christmas dinner. These are uncooked and can be popped in the oven, or frozen and enjoyed on Christmas Day. We are handing these out to the families we helped in the first initiative.” Jafari says the reaction was unbelievable, with the entire community banding together and hundreds of requests to volunteer to help. She says it was particularly important to back the initiative as Maryam's Kitchen is a community driven business. “Maryam's ethos has always been to spread kindness through her cooking and so we felt it was simply something we must take part in,” says Jafari. “The families we served were so wonderful and grateful, and all of them told us a number of times how much of a difference we made to them. We received so many cards and artwork from those children to whom we made a difference to in that week.”

Indian restaurant Mumtaz Leeds, meanwhile, also provided meals to children over half term and to the community at large during the first lockdown. The restaurant says that while it would like to continue to provide meals over the festive period, with Leeds currently on the Government’s Tier 3 list - and therefore subject to the strictest coronavirus restrictions, it’s a difficult situation to be in. “There has been no Government guidance, no date set for the easing of restrictions, so at present we have no idea what’s going on, we have to wait and see when we can open”, says Asad Arif, customer and business relations manager at Mumtaz Leeds. “When we previously gave out free meals, we could afford it at that stage,” he explains. “Our position was that whilst we can do something to help, we will. The reaction from customers has been very supportive, we’ve received many kind letters.”