FIONA TWYCROSS VISITS HOLIDAY PROVISION CLUBS

Our new pilot aimed at highlighting and tackling the hidden problem of holiday provision amongst London’s most vulnerable had a visit from Fiona Twycross, the Londonwide Assembly Member and publisher of Zero Hunger City: Tackling Food Poverty in London.

The London Summer pilot, which is one of only a handful conducted to date across the UK, united 14 clubs and organisations across six London Local Authorities to provide over 4000 meals to feed on average 400 children and young people over a five week period.

The visit allowed Fiona to see first-hand some of the great work being done at one of our pilot sites, Flashpoint Centre Play, Chelsea and Kensington. Flashpoint, like all our pilot sites, offers an open access play scheme with fun and educational elements offered during the day.

They got involved as they believe that holiday hunger is an issue in their community and is a barrier to reducing inequality.

Flashpoint strongly feel that part of tackling the issue of inequality is not only food provision but to ensure they educate children and young people with the basic necessary skills to learn how to cook. A skill they could then share with their families, hopefully inspiring some more home cooked meals.

They also believe in encouraging children to enjoy family setting for meal times and invited Fiona to join them for their meal of roasted vegetables and pasta, with a berry muffin for afters.

We will be using the findings of all our pilots to feed into the work already created by the All Party Parliamentary Group of School Food’s Holiday Hunger Task Group to formulate a pan London specific formula, allowing interested organisations to plan and run sustainable holiday provision programmes.

The London Summer #HolidayProvision pilot was kindly supported by both the innocent foundation and Kellogg’s.