Nottingham woman calling for Government action on child poverty
Georgia Sullivan is amongst campaigners in London today calling on the Government to help lift more than a million children out of poverty
A Nottingham woman is calling on the Government to help lift more than a million children out of poverty by scrapping the two-child benefit cap.
2\6 year old Georgia Sullivan is speaking in Westminster today alongside other campaigners and the charity Action for Children, as they launch their 'Pay the Price' campaign.
As a child, Georgia experienced deep poverty living in North London and then growing up in Stevenage and has continued to face financial stress into adulthood, where she now lives, in Nottingham.
"I was always really jealous of people that had packed lunches"
"I know that poverty can look like lots of different things – from hardworking families just struggling to make ends meet, to the more extreme end of the scale. For us, we were at the more extreme end. I remember the threat of bailiffs, of being actively told not to open the door because the bailiffs are coming."
Living in poverty had a significant impact on Georgia’s school experience.
"I remember that feeling of difference. I was badly bullied in primary school, because my clothes were really dirty, and we couldn’t afford multiple sets of school uniform. We needed to do constant laundry, but our electricity was on the meter, and we couldn’t afford to. I’d get in trouble for wearing joggers to school, and for having to take others’ uniform from lost property.
"In my primary school, there was a ‘free’ school dinner line and a ‘not free’ school dinner line. I always felt that separation, of being not only in the free school dinners queue, but then also not being allowed to sit with anyone that had a packed lunch either. It sounds like a small thing, but I was always really jealous of people that had packed lunches."
"We were at the more extreme end"
She shared with us how she has experienced lasting trauma from her childhood experiences.
"Part of poverty is trying to pretend and act like things that are ordinary for other people aren't extraordinary for you.
"All the physical things – like having nits for months because we couldn’t afford the treatments, not knowing if there would be enough food and not having a healthy, varied diet because fresh food was too expensive – those things have a real impact on your body image and relationship with food.
"I’m dealing with the lasting consequences every day."
After going to live with her grandparents at 14, in an informal kinship care arrangement, Georgia became a Looked After Child at 16, when she was declared homeless.
She was then moved between supported accommodation and hostels. Georgia has focused hard on her ambition to break the generational cycle of poverty, studying to become a nurse.
She tells us what that means to her:
"I just want something different. Not wanting my future children to experience poverty, not having to live through it myself again, and not living with the guilt that I know my parent did if I have my own family. But then I’m so fearful of the idea of starting a family, and how to gain that financial stability that I’d need before I even start to think about it. I sometimes just put it out of my head, because I can start to feel hopeless."
Georgia is currently taking a break from her nursing degree to practice as an Expert by Experience in mental health hospitals two days a week.
"I really want to make a difference. Through sharing my experiences with people who can influence change on a wider scale, I hope to demonstrate how their decisions affect the real lives of vulnerable people in society."
The new research from Action for Children warns that a narrow focus on boosting income from parental employment in the Government's forthcoming Child Poverty Strategy ‘will barely shift the dial’ on family hardship levels, lifting only 150,000 children out of poverty by the end of the decade.
They claim scrapping the two-child limit and benefit cap are essential to any ambitious reduction in poverty rate, as well as being most cost-effective option.
"Our report sets out the path by which this government can consign our shamefully high levels of child hardship to history. The question now is whether it is willing to do what’s needed," said CEO at Action for Children, Paul Carberry.
"This research makes clear that a Child Poverty Strategy which focuses on boosting parents’ income through employment will barely shift the dial.
"If the government wants to keep its promise to significantly reduce child poverty and keep it down in the long term, this means scrapping the caps, boosting benefits and building more social homes too.
"In the current fiscal climate, there’s no doubt this will require difficult choices – but poverty has a price too."
To take a look at the open letter they've created, click here.
We've approached the Government for a comment.
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