Children need nourishing school dinners more than ever before, as many families struggle with the cost of living, a leading expert has warned. BBC News has been speaking to families and schools as they try to tackle the problem.
The Raza family...
*rolls eyes*
... - dad Ali, mum Simran and their eight-year-old daughter, Alishah - live in one of Bradford's back-to-back, two-up-two-down terraced houses. The heating is off upstairs to help manage rising bills and Ali tells me: "We're just managing, and not very well."
So, what do you do for a living, Ali?
Ali is a self-employed wholesaler. He mainly buys fruit and vegetables in bulk before selling them on - but there is a limit to what small local shops are prepared to pay, so as costs rise his profits decrease.
And have you considered that if this Del Boy of the Cabbages lifestyle won't support your family, you could maybe get a better paying job?
It means they can only afford to buy school lunch for Alishah once, or sometimes twice, a week. Each meal at her school, Dixons Marchbank Primary, costs £2.10.
Weekly child benefit is £21.80 per week. Where's the rest going?
As Simran prepares pasta and a salad for Alishah's evening meal, she says she wishes they could afford more frequent school lunches, as sometimes Alishah does not eat her packed lunch of cold leftovers.
She's not hungry then, is she?
"the heating is off upstairs...." .
ReplyDeleteFor most of my 70 plus years, my places of accommodation, from the 2 up 2 down rented house of my childhood, to the council house my parents were eventually allocated, to Army married quarters during my 23 years service, to the house we bought after my demob, none of them had heating upstairs. The first two only had heating in the living room. This was normal at the time. These people should get over themselves and their sense of entitlement. If it's too cold for them, they could always move back to the land of their fathers where it is probably warmer.
Penseivat
Whatever happened to 'putting a jumper on'?
DeleteHe probably lives in one of BD3/7/8 or 9...all sh*tholes of the highest order, all been turned into Karachi on a bad day.
ReplyDeleteBradford Moor ward, where I have the misfortune to work, is supposedly one of the most deprived council wards in the country...yet 4 cars to every house, constant dumping of fridges, mattresses etc and building work on dormers or converting cellars on every street.
The amount of food and drink wasted by our impoverished Asian cousins is unbelievable.
Thats before we get onto the alcoholic eastern Europeans...
Yes, it's noticable that 'deprived areas' are always the most congested with vehicles, isn't it?
Delete