I know you will find this hard to believe. Great Britain (UK) has always been considered a developed country. It has the world’s fifth largest economy. So you may find it difficult to believe that about five million children in UK are growing up in poverty. Most of these children don’t get enough to eat. Not knowing if you would get your next meal or not is sure to cause a great deal of stress on a daily basis. Stress, as we know, can give birth to many health problems. Malnourished children are vulnerable to serious diseases. They can’t focus on their studies or sports.
Many of them have a single parent. In spite of their hard work and multiple jobs, most of these single parents are unable to feed their children. To highlight this problem, Child Poverty Action Group published a pamphlet titled, ‘Living hand to Mouth,’ based on the first-hand accounts of children and mothers. Bryony, a fourteen-year-old boy, said, “If there isn’t enough food, my brother and I will get something, but my mum will go hungry. It gets to the point where we will start feeling guilty, because mum hasn’t had anything and we have had at least something.” A single mother of three children said, “Last week I didn’t eat for four days. I had to lie to my kids and tell them I have eaten, so that they were okay. As long as my children have something to eat, then I’m okay.”
Fr M A Joe Antony SJ
To read the entire article, click Subscribe
