Food banks and Arctic 30

Merry Christmas!

This blog was going to be written on Christmas Eve. Then I was tired and left it until Christmas Day, and now finally on the evening of Boxing Day I'm actually doing it. (Okay, so I'm a little flaky about updating this sometimes... what can I say?)

I knew that I wanted to write a blog about food banks, but I wasn't really sure how to phrase it. I feel that the most appropriate way would be to bring to your attention a woman named Jack Monroe. She is someone who I have recently grown to admire, as this Christmas she successfully ran a petition to ask Parliament to debate hunger and the causes of it in the UK. I will quote her petition text below:

'On Christmas Day 2011, I sat on my sofa by myself in a freezing cold flat, with no television, no presents, no food in the fridge that had been turned off at the mains. I had no tree, no decorations, nothing to mark the day as any different from any other.

I was unemployed, broke, and broken. I hadn't bought a single present for my one-year-old son, and instead let him go to his father’s for the day, knowing I could not give him a Christmas myself.

This year, I’m lucky that things are different for me. But I am outraged that for 60,000 other people are facing the same situation. How can it be that in 2013, 20,000 children face Christmas with empty cupboards and no presents? And why is that figure three times the number that faced a hungry Christmas last year?

I don’t think this is acceptable in the seventh richest country in the world – and I’d really like to know the reasons why it’s happening so we can stop it.

That’s why I’m launching this petition calling for parliament to debate the causes of UK hunger – and to ask why, in modern Britain, foodbank use is escalating so rapidly.

This December, I’m backing the Daily Mirror and Unite the Union’s ‘Give Our Kids A Christmas’ Appeal for the Trussell Trust to raise money for Foodbanks. But we want to do more than just raise money to help – we also want get to the root of UK hunger.

I know what it’s like to turn the fridge off because it's empty anyway. To unscrew the lightbulbs to alleviate the temptation of turning them on. I spent countless mornings sitting across the breakfast table from my son, envious of his small portion of cereal mashed with a little bit of water, or his slice of toast with jam. "Where's Mummy's breakfast?" he used to ask. Mummy wasn't hungry. Mummy hadn’t been hungry the previous night either, and I used to wonder how long it would take him to notice that Mummy wasn’t very hungry at all any more.

I was referred to my local foodbank for help by a Sure Start children's centre, after staff noticed that my son and I always had seconds and thirds of the free lunch they provided.

This Christmas, my son and I will have food on the table. But 60,000 others won’t. It’s not just the festive season – 350,000 people received three-days emergency food from foodbanks between April and September this year. Yet supposedly the economy is recovering, and banker’s bonuses are back?

Please join me by signing this petition calling for a Parliamentary Debate. Make politicians confront what is happening. We need to stop turning a blind eye.

In the words of Desmond Tutu: "There comes a point where we need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they're falling in."'
Anyway, I signed this petition, and it worked - to an extent -, because food banks and hunger were debated in parliament. Over 60 Labour MPs requested to speak at the debate and they took turns to tell the stories of their constituents. They talked about the ex-serviceman who turned to a foodbank while waiting for four weeks for Atos to deal with his appeal; the story of two hungry young boys who came to ask for one packet of cereal and one packet of drinking chocolate as a treat; and the man whose benefits were sanctioned when he couldn't attend an assessment interview because he was in hospital with his wife who was seriously ill with cancer. Unfortunately, no legislation has changed as of yet. Iain Duncan Smith left the debate halfway through - although he did turn up in the first place, which is according to Jack, a victory in itself.

I'm so proud of everyone who came together to make this petition work, especially Jack who started the whole thing. I think that 2014 will be a year in which a lot more will be done to tackle hunger, both here in the UK and internationally. I will continue to blog about it, so please keep your eyes posted on here, and on things run by Jack Monroe and other people involved with similar campaigns.

There is just one more thing I'd like to update you all on - the Arctic 30 have been released! Now, I don't think I've blogged about the Arctic 30, but I have been following their case very closely. Essentially, they are 30 people from Greenpeace who were imprisoned for two months in Russia, along with their ship, Arctic Sunrise. After a great deal of petitioning, trials and campaigning, all thirty have been released and allowed home. It is not over as many still have charges against them, but currently at least one of them has had charges dropped, and I am very much hoping that the same will happen for the others. So what with this and Pussy Riot finally being released, I think we can all have a little positivity at the end of this year.

So peace out, all have an amazing New Year and I'll do some more blogging soon.