Category: Blog

Hilary Russell Awarded Prestigious Lambeth Award

Feeding Liverpool’s co-chair of trustees Dr Hilary Russell has been honoured with a community service award from the Archbishop of Canterbury.

Hilary, a founding member of Feeding Liverpool, is among 36 people recognised for outstanding contributions to the Church and wider society, in the Archbishop’s 2021 Lambeth Awards.

She has received the Langton Award for Community Service, in recognition of her: “exceptional work initiating and supporting the social justice ministry of the Church and the churches – particularly relating to sustainable and affordable food policy in Liverpool”

Hilary, who is a retired Professor of Urban Policy at Liverpool John Moores University, has spent the last 60 years dedicated to helping tackle social inequality through her academic career, Christian ministry and social action.

In her award citation Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby described Hilary as a ‘generous’, ‘courageous’, and ethical Liverpool civic leader.

The award citation reads: “Hilary is a humble woman who challenges injustice in ways that serve the common good.

“This is most evident in her work with Feeding Liverpool – where she leads the conversations around affordable and sustainable food policy; and as a trustee of Together Liverpool – which she served as Chair for many years and where she now represents the charity in local and national conversations concerning local issues, where she has made an outstanding contribution.”

Hilary said: “I am privileged to receive this award alongside such a wonderful cohort of inspirational people. It is also testament to the dedication, faith and generosity of many people I have been able to work with over the years as we strive to work towards a fairer society.

“I hope that it helps highlight issues of social injustice and the need for greater equality in the distribution of resources, and that it might encourage more people to use their gifts to find ways to get involved in social action to make a bigger difference in our communities.”

Interviewed recently by Together Liverpool about the award Hilary said:

“As elsewhere in Britain, there are people struggling on low incomes, whether it’s those with no recourse to public funds, those whose benefits are inadequate, or those who are employed getting too low a wage to afford sufficient food. There are also issues about access to affordable healthy food.

“An important part of the work of both Together Liverpool and Feeding Liverpool is about moving on from emergency food provision to supporting the development of more resilience and sustainable solutions to food insecurity, like pantries and community shops. I am very encouraged by the work that is happening in Liverpool.

“Feeding Liverpool is at the heart of a huge effort in the city with the public sector working with Voluntary, Community and Faith Sector partners to develop a strategic plan of activity.

“It has been heartening to see the wider benefits of the food work done by Feeding Liverpool and all its partners – not just helping food to reach the people who need it most, but also fostering a real sense of community and bringing people together – in a properly socially distanced way!

“It‘s not only about food, but also about supporting people experiencing financial insecurity, with activities like welfare advice, debt counselling, homelessness provision. In all these areas, churches are very much a part of the response to social injustice.”

The Feeding Liverpool steering group would like to thank Hilary for her longstanding service and commitment to tackling injustice across our city.

Calling all emergency food providers in Liverpool!

Feeding Liverpool, as part of the city’s Good Food Plan, is working to produce an interactive map of emergency food provision across the city.

This map will provide information for individuals seeking emergency food support and organisations looking to signpost to support.

Liverpool’s Good Food Plan is led by the Food Insecurity taskforce, a partnership of organisations formed out of Liverpool City Council’s Covid Recovery Plan to Build Back Better. It will be co-produced by those with lived experiences of hunger and food insecurity, staff and volunteers on the front-line of food provision, businesses and third sector partners, as we work towards an action plan to strengthen community responses to food insecurity and ensure high-quality front-line food provision.

We would like to include on the map:

  • foodbanks (both large and small)
  • emergency meal providers, including soup kitchens, hostels, community meal hosts and emergency meal delivery services
  • and the many community groups, charities and housing associations who have responded with emergency food support over the last year

Feeding Liverpool is conducting a survey of these organisations asking for information that will be placed on the public-facing map. The survey will also ask about the organisation’s current emergency food provision and processes, to enable Feeding Liverpool, along with the other Good Food Plan partners including Liverpool City Council and Liverpool Charity and Voluntary Services, to learn more about and be able to provide greater support for Liverpool’s emergency food providers. All data provided will be stored safely by Feeding Liverpool.

The survey will be open until 14th April and can be found here: https://www.surveymonkey.co.uk/r/feedingliverpool

For questions about the emergency food provision survey or map please contact Dr Naomi Maynard at [email protected]

More information about the Good Food Plan can be found here https://www.feedingliverpool.org/goodfoodplan

“I don’t think children should go to bed without dinner”

 

The 16th October is World Food Day – a day where food is celebrated but also where we remember those across the world who are going hungry, including those in our own city and country.

But remembering or even acknowledging that hunger and food insecurity are problems in our society isn’t quite enough.

We have reached the point where donating to our local foodbanks – who are doing amazing work looking after us in times of need –  or cooking a meal for our neighbours when their cupboards are running low, also isn’t quite enough.

 

Individual acts of kindness and our hard-working voluntary sector should not be the solution to the problem of why children across the UK go to bed hungry, or why parents skip meals in the school holidays so their children can eat, or why the elderly gentleman across the road has developed ‘soft bones’ after living off a diet of plain toast and black tea.

We need a coordinated response. A clear plan. We need action.

Through the End Hunger UK campaign we are calling on our Government to set out a cross – departmental road map explaining how, together, we are going to tackle the systems and structures that have trapped thousands – both those in and out of work – in poverty.

We need our Government to ACT NOW TO END UK HUNGER.

 

Read more about the campaign on our

End Hunger UK – Liverpool page

Join us in supporting End Hunger UK this October

On Sunday 13th October Feeding Liverpool will show our support for the End Hunger UK  Week of Action by taking part in a photo stunt to send a message to our politicians – we’d love for you to join in too. Read our blog below to find out how you can get involved.

 

 

What is End Hunger UK?

End Hunger UK is a national campaign which believe that everybody should have access to good food and that nobody should go to bed hungry. They are working to challenge and change the systems and structures within our society that prevent this.

What is End Hunger UK’s Week of Action?

11th- 18th October is the End Hunger UK Week of Action. Groups across the country are taking part in events to show our support for the End Hunger UK campaign – telling our politicians we are not satisfied with the status quo. A new stage of this campaign will be launched on Wednesday 16th October- World Food Day.

Feeding Liverpool are coordinating Liverpool’s photo stunt as part of this campaign – this will be sent along with our End Hunger press release, to our local papers on the 16th October to mark the launch of this phase of the campaign.

When is the photo stunt?

We will meet at 12.15pm on Sunday 13th October at St Georges Church, Everton – where we will walk together to Everton Park to take our photo.  This will be immediately after St George’s Harvest Service at 11am – people of all faiths and none are welcome to this service. See the flyer below for details about this service.

Who can take part on the photo stunt?

Anyone interested in ending hunger in Liverpool. Hunger effects all ages – children, accompanied by a parent or guardian, are very welcome to participate in the photo stunt.

What will be involved?    

We will take a photo holding up a series of letters to spell ‘ACT NOW TO END UK HUNGER’. This photo message will be used to accompany a press release about the campaign to local media. Please note – if, for any reason, you’d prefer not to show your face in the photo there is the option to hold the letter in front of your face.

How can I find out more about End Hunger UK?

There is more information about the campaign on their website.

There will also be a short video shown as part of the Harvest Service at St George’s with more information about the campaign. This will also available on our website from mid-October.

Any further questions contact Naomi Maynard – our Feeding Liverpool network coordinator.

 

Transforming unjust structures: how not to become stuck in the mud

Last month ITV ran a story about Dominic, a father of four from Everton who can be left with £60 a month to feed and clothe his family, living in fear that one day his children will be taken away. This story was picked up by the Liverpool Echo concerned how Brexit will hit some of our country’s poorest families.

Knowing Dominic personally, I know the ITV feature only told a small segment of his story, and that of his family – but the overall message remains the same: here is a family living on the breadline, riding the roller-coaster of our fluctuating political environment set amongst the backdrop of an evolving welfare landscape.

Stories such as Dominic’s provoke an emotional reaction – perhaps shock, frustration, anger, sorrow, embarrassment, grief, guilt. We may also feel overwhelmed, unsure how to react: how can we change the structures and systems that seem to have dug their roots wide and deep into our society, trapping many of those we know and care about in poverty?

Our feet get stuck in the mud – overwhelmed to the point of inaction.

Last week, at a workshop hosted by academic project Life on the Breadline, I met Stef Benstead  – a trustee of Church Action on Poverty. In 2012, having just started postdoctoral studies, Stef was diagnosed with Ehlers-Danlos Syndrome Type 3, Postural Tachycardia Syndrome and fibromyalgia – meaning she is often exhausted and in pain. No longer able to carry on her studies, Stef was left in a precarious position – navigating our complex and, as she was to discover, our deeply flawed, welfare landscape.

But Stef did not let her feet get stuck in the mud.

She collaborated, campaigned, wrote and researched. She identified, lobbied, listened and argued. Stef – who tells the story of how austerity has impacted disabled people in her soon-to-be-published book Second Class Citizens – turned her emotions and experiences into actions to transform unjust structures and systems.

Speaking to a collective of academics and practitioners, Stef, alongside Church Action on Poverty’s Director Niall Cooper, encouraged us all to do the same – offering us this advice on where to start:

1.    Identify – do not try and change the whole system at once. As we heard earlier in the workshop, poverty is like an octopus (slippery and difficult to tackle all at once). Start by identifying one change that needs to be made.

2.    Gather – Bring together others who can also see a need for this change. Do more than identify problems, suggest solutions. Whilst none of your group may come with a fully formed solution – as you listen and reflect together, there may be many partially formed solutions in the room, which can be joined together.

3.    Frame – Think about who needs to hear what you want to say – how can you frame your arguments in ways that they will hear? Use language they will be able to engage with. For Stef this meant framing her arguments in ways her friends with a different political outlook could connect with.

4.    Be Brave – make your case both far and wide, and near and targeted. Invite local and national politicians to your meetings – they may be able to open doors for you beyond what you may foresee.

We can do more than wallow in our shock, frustration, anger, sorrow, embarrassment, grief, guilt… we do not have to be stuck in the mud.

Listen to all the talks from the Transforming Structural Injustice workshop: https://breadlineresearch.coventry.ac.uk/transforming-structural-injustice/

Blog Author: Dr Naomi Maynard – Naomi is the Lead Project Development Worker at Together Liverpool  – as part of this role she is the network coordinator of Feeding Liverpool