Food Banks In The UK

Dr. Michael LaitmanIn the News (from World Socialist Website): “Tens of thousands of Britons are struggling to make ends meet, forcing ever greater numbers to resort to the use of food banks.

“There are now 163 food banks in the UK. In 2011 alone there was one opening every week.

“Food banks were first launched in 2000 by the Trussell Trust to address the problem of providing emergency provisions of food to people who had no money. People are referred from Citizens Advice, GPs (doctors), social workers and school liaison officers. Each person is entitled to three vouchers at a time, with each voucher exchanged for an emergency bag of food that lasts approximately three days.

“In September 2011, the Trussell Trust said that the numbers of young people using its food banks had risen from 41,000 to 65,500 in the previous 12 months.

“Many young people are not entitled to welfare benefits. Now the government is launching a major attack on existing welfare arrangements that will force many people already on the bread line over the edge.

“It is estimated that up to one third of the UK population have little or no savings, or any available funds to fall back on. Chris Mould [executive chairman of the Trussell Trust] said: ‘People are going without food in order to feed their children, sometimes for days, for all sorts of different reasons, but fundamentally because their incomes are too low to support their basic needs of housing, clothing and food.’”

My Comment: And yet, there is no need to produce more food: The world has surplus food, but there is no desire to provide food for everybody. If we treated the whole world as our home, we would have an abundance of everything. Hence, the problem is not in the world, but in our upbringing.
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