As I write this the BBC are reporting that food banks are closing not just on safety grounds but because panic buying has cleared the shelves and wiped out reserves.
Yesterday the Government told everyone to get ready for lockdown the same time as hundreds of thousands of people were told they will be forced to take unpaid leave, joining the 3 million self-employed, gig and zero-hour economy workers who are too poor to qualify for sick pay and have no money to panic buy.
I like many have established a Corona Virus Community Support Network on face book and using NextDoor community website whilst using my experience establishing the UK largest Independent food bank and after the tragic murder of Homeless support worker Christine, Archibald establishing a homeless grassroots support network working across the UK, as well as being CEO www.kathduncanequaltyandcivilrightsnetwork.org I now my stuff I have set up a guidance guide that groups across the UK are copying and is also being copied by ex-pat community in Spain, we grassroots organisations can help but we have to be part of the solution, not an afterthought, as I write this we need to deliver target flyers to every home in our area with our support numbers, useful numbers like samaritans and how to get help in your street when lockdown hits, and yet we have NO CASH to pay the £30 per thousand flyers we need to print.
We have set up a structure to reduce risk by building wards community teams and then breaking each ward into the 6 polling districts each ward has to minimise risk and distance we are asking people to carefully handwrite a note to their neighbours offering support and to share what they have or just have a chat to show solidarity.
As the Country goes into lockdown many groups like ours are finding our Community to poor to donate CASH, we will need free food, toiletries, pet food every helper will need gloves, we advice everyone meeting people they MUST wear gloves to deliver flyers or food, spray containers with bacterial spray, wear glasses even sunglasses if that's all you have and a scarf to cover your mouth and nose, why are we not being consulted by Governments, local Councils? We are on the front line and doing our bit and yet we are forced to create a GoFundMe page to raise cash, ours here if you can chip in
The Government and local Councils should be supporting my guidance by using my model to create community networks in every ward across the UK and breaking them down into easy manageable 6 pooling districts, we are using whats app for our group for central command BUT if the entire country is in lockdown HOW will the 3 million kids who get free meals, how will people with NO CASH get food? Should we not be giving every household a basic emergency income to help them eat through these crises? or will we have to lead raids on our supermarkets to get food to stop pour neighbours starving to death?
If You work in the food sector and can help our group access food in London if you're a politician should you not be setting up emergency Borough-wide coordination of all your local groups doing stuff? We all need to be asking Were will the food come from? How can we use empty buildings to house our Homeless Neighbours who have enough to cope with without this worry, Our GROUP Will and Can help, the sick, the disabled, the lonely the scared we just need a Council and Government that understands the importance of OUR unpaid community work to give us access to food, and if you have any spare cash please donate here
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