Families often reluctant to Admit struggle
IT’S rare to get a call from someone who desperately needs food for themselves or their children. The call usually comes from a neighbour or a friend, as they’re reluctant to admit how bad things are.
“The poor have got poorer,” says Naz Kazmi, chief executive of Keighley Association for Women and Children Centre. “We have a lot of families where the main income is from taxi drivers, earning much less due to the early closure of night-time economy. We supported an Eastern European family with two kids. The husband had lost his building job and they needed a leg up while Universal Credit came through.”
Keighley, part of the Bradford Metropolitan District, is a former mill town hit hard by lockdowns. Naz has given out tinned goods, rice and pasta, and twice a week provides meals to heat up at home. She adds: “Families cannot afford to support their children – and
not just with food. We are providing clothes, shoes, bedding and toys for the children. It’s awful.”
Before March, 30 people a week used Keighley’s Salvation Army foodbank. At the height of Covid it was 3,600. The network the charity supports includes Hainworth Wood Community Centre, in my ward of Keighley East. Dad-of-two Stuart, 43, comes in for a parcel and praises the centre as the “heart of the community”, adding: “When you’re struggling, the system is designed to make you struggle.”
Cllr Firth is donating the fee from this article to food support in Keighley. Donate at justgiving.com/ fundraising/keighley-salvation-army3