All Change Shoreditch
Two young people who attend Kitchen Social hub All Change in Shoreditch, Hackney tell us how holiday provision has supported them and their community.
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“In Central London, I feel like not many people are like necessarily financially well off, like well off well off.
A lot of my family members or close friends are in this situation: during the day when they’re at school, they’re getting free school meals and they know that’s going to happen, but then when the holidays start, things get challenging.
Living in Shoreditch means that getting lunch out is expensive. It’s nice to know that you don’t need to worry about feeding yourself, and if you’ve got financial issues or other reasons, then there’s food available for everyone’s needs like vegan, halal and stuff like that.
It definitely helps knowing that before you sign up to a project, there will be lunch provided. If that wasn’t made clear, then people might not come for the sake of not having food to bring.
They would then just be sat without food while everyone’s got their packed lunch out. It’s very helpful that these spaces are here to provide food for people.
Everyone needs to eat, and if you can’t provide meals every day it’s a difficult situation to be in.”
Shola, 17
“I always try to be healthy, but temptation sometimes gets the best of me!
It’s that, and then also the fact that when we eat at school, there’s a store right next door and the cheapest and quickest things to eat tend not to be the healthiest stuff. The healthier stuff tends to cost a lot more, and if you do that regularly it racks up over the months which is expensive.
My parents both have to work during the holidays, so dinners are always fine, but lunch is kind of left up to me and my brother. My brother has just started getting into cooking now since starting Food Tech at secondary school, but I’ve never been that into it so we tend not to make stuff at home.
Very occasionally we’ll go out to get Subway, but most the time we just eat whatever’s in the house.
I think the fact that the food is free is really important. People that come here do rely on free food and drink in the holidays. It’s really hard for a lot of people because they have to go weeks at a time without getting those free meals during the day.
In terms of the location, I really like that it is where it is because I’d never heard of this building before. It’s really nice getting to look round the exhibits that they have going on because I hadn’t heard of either of the photographers.
Having this club in venues like this is good for exposing young people to things that maybe they hadn’t heard of before.
It seems really insightful and thoughtful that the food, as well as the actual Summer course here, is free.”
Alice, 16
