#Chances4Children: Unicef UK rolls out support through first ever domestic grant
Fiona Simpson
Wednesday, December 16, 2020
A food distribution charity has begun rolling-out support to disadvantaged families funded by Unicef UK’s first ever domestic emergency grant.
School Food Matters will use the grant to supply more than 20,000 nutritious breakfasts over the two-week Christmas school holidays and February half term to vulnerable children and families in Southwark who have been severely impacted by the coronavirus pandemic.
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The grant represents the first time in its 70-year history that Unicef UK has moved to develop a UK domestic emergency response.
Food Power for Generation Covid is a joint initiative with Sustai: the alliance for better food and farming, which will help provide food for vulnerable children and their families by awarding grants to UK community projects like School Food Matters.
Before the pandemic struck, an estimated 2.4 million children in the UK were already living in food-insecure households and, according to research by the Trussell Trust, suggests that a further 900,000 families have been plunged into poverty by the pandemic.
In Southwark, there are 15,000 children who are vulnerable to food poverty.
School Food Matters is building on its breakfast box scheme which launched earlier in the year and ran for 18 weeks during lockdown and the summer holidays.
Stephanie Slater, the founder and chief executive of School Food Matters, said: “We’re so grateful to Unicef for providing this timely funding. The response to our summer Breakfast Boxes programme has shown us that families are really struggling and many were facing the grim reality of a two-week winter break without access to free school meals and the indignity of having to rely on food banks to feed their children.
“Our Breakfast Boxes programme has also shown us that the threshold for free school meal eligibility is too low to capture all the families in need of support. That’s why we’re getting behind the National Food Strategy call for an extension to free school meal eligibility. We cannot continue to rely on civil society to fill the hunger gap as too many children will miss out on the nutrition they need to thrive.”
School Food Matters will use the Unicef funding to work with Premier Foods, Southwark Council and Southwark Food Action Alliance to deliver 13,500 nutritious breakfasts to 25 schools for distribution around the borough. Each Breakfast Box will provide enough food for 10 breakfasts across the Christmas holiday.
Anna Kettley, director of programmes at Unicef UK, said: "This is Unicef’s first ever emergency response within the UK, introduced to tackle the unprecedented impact of the coronavirus crisis and reach the families most in need.
“This funding will help build stronger communities as the impact of the pandemics worsen, but ultimately a longer-term solution is needed to tackle the root causes of food poverty, so no child is left to go hungry.”
Meanwhile, a coalition of organisations providing wraparound care have written to the government calling for extra funding to save their services.
“Without urgent financial support, their services are at imminent risk of closure, which would immediately remove much needed childcare support for vulnerable children and key worker families as well as other hard-working families all around the country,” the letter, led by Junior Adventures Group UK and supported by 250 signatories states.