Wed, Sep 02, 2020 page16

• Rashford takes aim at child hunger with new taskforce

  • The Guardian
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  Three months after he forced a government U-turn on summer holiday school meal vouchers, Marcus Rashford has set his sights on a bigger target: the end of child food poverty in Britain.

  After lawmakers scrambled to line up behind the Manchester United soccer player and advocate, it is the turn of the food industry.

  In a letter to lawmakers released yesterday morning, Rashford unveiled a “child food poverty taskforce” that he has formed with brands — including Aldi, Tesco, Deliveroo and Kellogg’s — set out three major new policy goals and issued a rallying cry for long-lasting change.

  

  Manchester United’s Marcus Rashford, right, vies against Sevilla’s Suso in their UEFA Europa League semi-final at the RheinEnergieStadion in Cologne, Germany, on Aug. 16.

  Photo: Reuters

  “Food poverty is contributing to social unrest,” he wrote, reflecting on a series of meetings with families in need of the same support that he counted on as a child.

  “Watching a young boy keeping it together whilst his mother sobbed alongside him, feeling like he has to step up to protect his family and alleviate some of that worry. He was nine years old,” Rashford wrote. “I know that feeling. I remember the sound of my mum crying herself to sleep to this day, having worked a 14-hour shift, unsure how she was going to make ends meet. That was my reality.”

  The ambitious plan that Rashford sets out calls on British Chancellor of the Exchequer Rishi Sunak to fund the implementation of three key policy recommendations from the national food strategy, a government-commissioned report highlighting huge economic and health inequalities, aggravated by the COVID-19 pandemic.

  “Mothers and fathers are raising respectful, eloquent young men and women, who, in reality, are part of a system that will not allow them the opportunity to win and succeed,” Rashford wrote. “It all starts with stability around access to food.”

  While the food strategy — written by Leon founder Henry Dimbleby — was commissioned by the government, ministers have not yet said that they would act on its recommendations.

  Rashford said that a visit to the Evelyn Community Store in Deptford, southeast London, had redoubled his commitment to the cause.

  “I spoke to a mother recently who, along with her two young sons, is currently living off three slices of bread a day — soaking them in hot water and adding sugar, hoping that the porridge consistency might better sustain the hunger of her one-year old child,” he wrote. “This is the true reality of England in 2020.”

  Natasha Ricketts, a volunteer at the Evelyn Community Store — which is supplied with food by FareShare — described Rashford as “an absolutely lovely guy. It’s massive, for a young guy to take on such a big task. He’s very humble, very down-to-earth and it wasn’t that long ago that he was one of those kids himself.”

  It is not yet clear whether politicians and business would commit to following Rashford’s lead in the long term, Ricketts said.

  “But if not, they will have to answer why,” she said. “And that is the power of his voice.”
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