18.11.19
Stop School Hunger campaign launched in Wales
A grassroots charity from Wrexham in Wales are calling for government to urgently increase free school meals allowance by 80p.
According to the award-winning community charity, TCC (Trefnu Cymunedol Cymru / Together Creating Communities), children are increasingly found to be going hungry at school.
In Wales, the problem is beginning to affect children’s ability to learn and they are spending their lunch money on breakfast as soon as they get to school.
In some cases, teachers and staff are spending their own money buying food for the pupils who are struggling the most.
A number of the charity members are made up of teaching assistants, who have launched a Wales-wide Stop School Hunger campaign today (Nov 18) calling on the Welsh Government to urgently increase school meal allowance to 80p.
The increase in school meal money would allow children to have breakfast and a sufficient lunch, giving thousands of the poorest children the chance to eat a school meal and focus their attention to their studies rather than their stomachs.
Headteacher of Ysgol y Grango and TCC member, Mr Stephen Garthwaite, says:
“I have seen first-hand the way hunger is destroying our children’s futures. TCC research echoes other studies that demonstrate that free school meals are no longer doing the job they are meant to be doing, with teachers bearing the brunt of its shortcomings and propping up a failing system.
“Free school meals were first conceived during Edwardian times, to stop teachers from spending their own money to feed starving children who were unable to take advantage of the mandatory education on offer. Child poverty in today’s Wales means that teaching staff are returning to a bygone era and once again dipping into their own pockets to buy children food at school.”
Wales has recently been identified as the online UK nation to see a rise in child poverty, and the generosity of teaching staff is providing a lifeline to many students.
TCC carried out a survey of around 500 pupils and many were arriving to school without breakfast and felt ‘hungry’ and ‘angry’ about the situation, taking attention off their studies.