REVEALED: Thousands of children turning to food banks across NI
Huge demand for emergency supply facilities from low income families
Last updated 25th Apr 2018
Shock new figures have revealed that more than 40% of emergency food supplies distributed in Northern Ireland in just one year went to children.
According to the Trussel Trust which runs over 400 food banks across the UK, 32,433 parcels were handed out.
Of those 13,289 were for children.
Natalie Porter manages a local facility in Newtownards.
She told Downtown Cool FM and Downtown Country, there is huge demand for the food bank in the local community:
"There is a very real need in the surrounding area where we help and support families because people are not able to access the support maybe in the community that they would have had years ago," she said.
"In the last three months alone, we had 459 people come through the food bank.
"And of that, 179 of them were children.
"When families come in and adults come in here they're representing more than just themselves.
"They are representing a family or children."
In Northern Ireland the biggest reason, for a food bank referral was being from a low income family.
A total of 45% of referrals here gave that reason.
Despite this, however, Natalie says there is still a common misconception around those accessing their services:
"People in society can say 'that's just people who are on benefits that go to food banks, they're just wasters' and that's not the case," she said.
"For us as a centre, over 36% of our clients are low income.
"So they're working families who are on low income, minimum wage maybe and then something has happened that has caused them to go into a crisis and emergency.
"That's the kind of people that come here, families that are really trying."
We spoke to one woman, who did not want to be named at the food bank, she told us she feels ashamed at having to ask for help:
"People judge...because you're going to the food bank that you can't provide for your own family, it puts you down," she said.
And she added the stigma is such that this was not her first attempt to access help:
"This would be my first time coming, I was going to come last week but I kept putting it off, then it got to the stage where I had to go," she said.
The woman who was in her twenties told us about her own situation:
"I was a community care worker for four years and my lung collapsed," she said.
"Well my two lungs collapsed, I had one one year and the other the next year so I had to have an operation and then I ended up on benefits.
"Getting a job with not being able to put pressure on my chest is really hard.
"All the other bills, the benefits sometimes just don't cover it.
"People say you're better off on benefits but you're not, we do struggle a lot."
The young mum said anyone could find themselves in a similar situation at any time:
"The stress is unreal," she said.
"I have never ever been so low on income and in the past when I was working I would always give and recently I'm the one receiving so I'm seeing it from a different perspective,"
And the local woman had a message for others who may need help but are scared to take the step:
She said: "The food banks are there to help so I would tell anyone that is struggling just to go down, it's not a big deal.
"No one judges, I thought everyone would but no one does."