Building Dignity, Agency and Power Together
Practical steps to building a grassroots social movement to challenge poverty
Read about the vision that will drive our work in the coming years
What is the Right To Food?
The Right To Food campaign is in the news a lot at the moment. But what is it, and what does it call for?
You may not know it, but everybody in the UK has a right to adequate food.
In 1976, the UK Government made a binding commitment under international human rights law to secure the human right to adequate food for everyone in the UK.
But… that commitment has never been enshrined into law. Food access remains very insecure and fragile for millions of people.
Attention on the issue has grown rapidly of late.
Where did the Right To Food idea come from?
There have been calls for many years for the UK to enact its 1976 commitment. Those calls have been growing for several years. The End Hunger UK campaign, for instance, called for the Westminster Government to recognise the Right To Food and ensure it was being met. Sustain has produced compelling arguments for action in recent years.
Why is Right To Food in the news now?
Things have moved quickly in 2021. The Fans Supporting Foodbanks group led by football supporters in Liverpool has taken up the cause and launched a concerted and widely popular campaign. It has captured the public imagination and is gaining wide support. Liverpool then declared itself a Right To Food City. The Greater Manchester City Region then did the same, and there are calls for several other cities to sign up.
In spring, the EFRA Committee in Parliament called for the Government to consult on the Right to Food, and called for a new Minister for Food Security. This online petition has more than 48,000 signatures.
The campaign is very timely. The Prime Minister has asked Henry Dimbleby to create a National Food Strategy and his report is due this summer. If he backs the Right To Food campaign calls, the Government would be legally responsible for ensuring everyone in the UK has access to adequate food. That would be a key step towards building a more just and compassionate society.
What is Church Action on Poverty's view on Right To Food?
We worked on this issue in 2015, alongside people in poverty, academics and other organisations. We looked at what a Right To Food might mean for people in the UK, and how we could ensure the right is met.
In 2015, we produced this short video, working with people with personal experience of food poverty.
Then, in 2018, we co-produced the Step Up To The Plate report, calling for Government action
The issue is as important now as it was then, and we encourage our supporters to back the Fans Supporting Foodbanks petition, to help build a more just and compassionate society for all, where food justice is secured.
Dignity, Choice, Hope
Our 2o21 report on the social impact of our Your Local Pantry programme
“I have food in my cupboards and have a bit of money to pay my debts off. The Pantry is not just a place to get food, it is a place to meet friendly staff and make new friends”
Pantry at No. 5, Stockport
SPARK newsletter winter 2021
Click on the right to download the latest issue of SPARK, our newsletter for supporters of Church Action on Poverty.
Untitled – a poem from ‘Same Boat?’
This poem by Ellis Howard comes from the new anthology 'Same Boat? Poems On Poverty And Lockdown'.
It is Sunday afternoon. Every window is pushed open and usually we can hear the sounds of shouts and tears from Number 46 as they routinely explain to Sarah that the country is in lockdown and why that means she can’t play footie on the field, even if she does Dettol the flies away, but today is quiet. There’s a stillness.
All I can hear is me Mam boiling water in the pan to make minestrone cup-of-soups for me, her and me Grandad. Cup-of-soups are a delicacy in our house but the packed croutons are hastily whipped out because today is the 1966 World Cup Final and me Granddad, sunken into the couch, remnants of wotsits all over his t-shirt, is ready to relive his youth.
I’m not much of a footie fan. The astroturf has been turned into offices and so me Grandad says I didn’t catch the bug young enough. But I still can’t help but feel Martin Peters started the combover revolution five decades before Justin Bieber. Half way through the game, me Grandad is shouting and busting a gut, me Mam looks terrified that his dodgy kidney will flare, but to me it’s hilarious. Before lockdown I’d sit in the library and watch old people kicking off on TikTok and think they were the funniest thing I’d ever seen.
I reckon if I had an iPhone, me Grandad would go viral, we’d be rich and we could eat cup-of-soups and get as many combovers as we wanted.
My text/poetry is mostly concerned with giving a voice to the glorious and complex lives of those who surround me in Liverpool. This piece is an insight into how those living on the breadline have been forced to make do during the pandemic. I am wholly inspired by my family and friends who met COVID-19 and Conservative policy with energy, humour and kindness. This poem is a love letter to those brave souls who history continually tries to undermine, but we don’t let it. X
Untitled #1 – a poem from ‘Same Boat?’
This poem by Grace Collins comes from 'Same Boat? Poems On Poverty And Lockdown', an anthology published today by Church Action On Poverty
worry
fear
worry
fear
round and round in my head
can’t sleep
can’t stop thinking
bills
eat
bills
eat
round and round in my head
the voices say, what should I do?
shut up
shut up!
hunger
shame
hunger
shame
round and round in my head
are they judging me?
I can’t ask for help
hope
guilt
hope
guilt
round and round in my head
food boxes
thanks
feed the kids
worry
fear
worry
fear
round and round in my head
every week
nothing changes
joy
understanding
joy
understanding
round and round in my head
a helping hand
no judgement passed
peace
relief
peace
relief!
When the food box arrived during the first week of lockdown, the feeling was of such relief. It was embarrassing to admit we needed help, but for us as a family, it was the inability to be able to book a delivery slot, and get hold of the essentials. As a carer I felt the weight of responsibly fell completely on my shoulders and it was such a relief to have that shared.
Same Boat film
A short film written by Ellis Howard and directed by Brody Salmon, inspired by the stories of those with lived experience of poverty during lockdown.
The film was made as a result of creative workshops run by Church Action on Poverty during summer 2020, and launched during the first Challenge Poverty Week England and Wales.
To find out more about the writer and film-maker, you can follow them on Twitter:
Same Boat? Poems on poverty and lockdown
Poems collated as a result of creative workshops run by Church Action on Poverty's Poet in Digital Residence Matt Sowerby during summer 2020
Untitled – a poem from ‘Same Boat?’
This poem by Brody Salmon comes from 'Same Boat? Poems on poverty and lockdown', an anthology to be published by Church Action on Poverty on 15 October 2020.
Sometimes I squash flies and align them on the windowsill like fingernails. I cough
on park gates as well, see, it isn’t hard to socially distance when I’m socially distant.
This fish bowl is flooded with make believe people, trudging like moths to make
|believe places. You just can’t see it, can you? That’s why I started letting the toast burn,
the baked beans n all! Letting the phone ring and the odours of animal honesty
reek out the house. The neighbour’s cat has been missing a week now.
Nothing says freedom like pausing the prisons, unfolding
prisms, ripping neckties, exchanging white ironed shirts
for pyjamas and slippers. I climb into the old suitcase
that we used to take to the seaside. I climb inside and pull
the zip, leave just enough room for a fingertip, and imagine
seagulls swooping, squawking for fish and chips.
Dad once hit the back of my hand.
I hear arcade machines and pennies
dropping. I miss you dad, but the gulls
won’t go away because they don’t
believe me when I say (scream)
there’s no food in here at all. Truth is,
I’m just too clever
for my own good.
I wrote the poem because there’s something lovable about a freak like my narrator. There’s something intriguing and disturbingly honest about his cynicism that everybody can sort of relate to. This is somebody whose madness is crippling them now that social norms and practice have been stripped from them. This is somebody relishing the isolation of lockdown, and in fact enjoying being locked away from the world, in a time where everybody seems to want to be seen, my character wants to disappear.