Action Against Food Poverty (AAFP) provides essential mental health support for the homeless and people in need, through our weekly walks, food and conversation.
By Robert Straw and Kate Brewin
Action Against Food Poverty (AAFP) provides essential mental health support for the homeless and people in need, through our weekly walks, food and conversation.
Over the past year, there have been a few changes to our weekly walks.
Firstly, due to lack of funding, we’ve only been able to do our walks every four to six weeks. But the landscape has changed too – mainly due to the amazing job many organisations are doing in supporting people to get their life off the streets, and back on track.
Over the last year, we’ve been seeing more and more people in what we call the ‘twilight zone’. This can be people who are just keeping body and soul together, people who are slowly sliding down the pole of life and people who are at the point of losing everything and sadly ending up back on the streets.
Our slogan Using Food as a Catalyst for Conversation means that we’re able to engage with people in a positive way, getting them to look at their situation with a more neutral approach.
We don’t give any advice, just empower people to think about the ways in which they might be able to move forward in their lives. And because we’re walking the same walks regularly, we get to know people, which means that we can build relationships and really support them.
One young man we’ve been talking to over the last couple of years had been sleeping rough in a tent by the river Thames.
At first he would only take a bit of food from us, but over time we managed to build trust in each other and very slowly he would talk to us about how grim his situation had become and how most people just ignored or abused him.
As we spent more time together, he began to look at things in a different light; he thought about the skills he had that could help move him forward, and he began to build relationships with some of the organisations that supported him.
In time, he was able to overcome his dependence on drink and alcohol and he started to slowly rebuild his life.
Last time we spoke to him, he had not taken any drugs or alcohol for over three months and was training to be a bricklayer. He also had a place to stay, and a front door he could call his own to close every day.
As we look to the future at AAFP, we need to increase the number of walks we do from one to two days a week. We also want to get proper training in mental health issues to help support our clients, and to set up primary school breakfast clubs; we’ve seen that a lot of people’s issues begin in childhood. But this all costs money.
To support our funding, we are looking for companies to either donate money or time. Could you or your team join us on one of our walks?
Walking with AAFP is not only a good thing to do, it can also help with teambuilding skills and personal confidence.
We’re not looking for a huge amount of money. But we do need regular and consistent funding. Every little helps!
Please check out www.aafp.uk and share with all your contacts on social media. Or drop us an email here – [email protected]
We’d also like to say thank you to Naked Ideas for the amazing support!
Check out our previous article about AAFP here.
