Ending children's food poverty: Lindsay Graham
Ending children's food poverty: Lindsay Graham
Author
Introduction
According to reports, the number of children eligible for free school meals has risen from 1.4 million to an estimated 2.3 million children following the coronavirus pandemic, and they are still at risk of food insecurity and associated poverty issues particularly during the holidays.
"It has been a very humbling experience to campaign for change on such an important issue of social justice." - Lindsay Graham, Fellow
Independent Policy Advisor Lindsay Graham (CF 2014) has been helping to raise awareness and influence policy so that no child goes hungry during the school holidays.
Following her Fellowship, in 2014 she was asked by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on School Food to set up and chair a national Holiday Hunger Task Group. The group held the UK’s first conference on the issue, devised national guidance for the delivery of holiday meals and mapped the UK’s holiday meal projects for the first time. Following this, Lindsay initiated the Children’s Future Food Inquiry. Driven by the Food Foundation and launched by Dame Emma Thompson in 2019, it highlighted the issue of children’s food insecurity in the UK and has led to several initiatives, including the Children’s Right2Food Campaign.
For the last seven years Lindsay has been committed to raising awareness of children’s food insecurity in the UK and the lack of holiday provision. She has travelled the length and breadth of the country, spoken at hundreds of events and presented her Fellowship findings to government ministers across all four UK regions. Her journey has included thousands of miles and countless national media appearances. Campaigning with others since 2017 has resulted in excess of £300 million in Government funding for holiday provision programmes in the UK. Furthermore, this early establishment of holiday provision networks, and investment in them across the UK has meant that some communities were able to mobilise quickly to support vulnerable families when the pandemic struck, and schools closed.
Lindsay is a former community nurse, who had a career in health and food education before turning her attention in 2012 to the neglected area of holiday hunger. Her Fellowship to the USA explored innovative community projects that address school holiday child hunger.
Lindsay says, “Hunger is a symptom of poverty, and it has been a very humbling experience to campaign for change on such an important issue of social justice. It was the Churchill Fellowship that enabled me to acquire the evidence, knowledge, courage, and confidence I needed to take on such an issue.
I have been privileged to visit countless UK holiday provision projects and meet some amazing people who are committed to helping their communities not for reward or kudos but simply because it is the right thing to do. This would never have happened if it were not for the Fellowship. Through their experiences I have learned about the importance of advocating for the right to food and I am still learning about the devastating effects of child poverty. It’s good to see that politicians are starting to listen and act but we still have a very long way to go to ensure that no child goes hungry here in the UK.”
"It has been a very humbling experience to campaign for change on such an important issue of social justice." - Lindsay Graham, Fellow
Independent Policy Advisor Lindsay Graham (CF 2014) has been helping to raise awareness and influence policy so that no child goes hungry during the school holidays.
Following her Fellowship, in 2014 she was asked by the All-Party Parliamentary Group on School Food to set up and chair a national Holiday Hunger Task Group. The group held the UK’s first conference on the issue, devised national guidance for the delivery of holiday meals and mapped the UK’s holiday meal projects for the first time. Following this, Lindsay initiated the Children’s Future Food Inquiry. Driven by the Food Foundation and launched by Dame Emma Thompson in 2019, it highlighted the issue of children’s food insecurity in the UK and has led to several initiatives, including the Children’s Right2Food Campaign.
For the last seven years Lindsay has been committed to raising awareness of children’s food insecurity in the UK and the lack of holiday provision. She has travelled the length and breadth of the country, spoken at hundreds of events and presented her Fellowship findings to government ministers across all four UK regions. Her journey has included thousands of miles and countless national media appearances. Campaigning with others since 2017 has resulted in excess of £300 million in Government funding for holiday provision programmes in the UK. Furthermore, this early establishment of holiday provision networks, and investment in them across the UK has meant that some communities were able to mobilise quickly to support vulnerable families when the pandemic struck, and schools closed.
Lindsay is a former community nurse, who had a career in health and food education before turning her attention in 2012 to the neglected area of holiday hunger. Her Fellowship to the USA explored innovative community projects that address school holiday child hunger.
Lindsay says, “Hunger is a symptom of poverty, and it has been a very humbling experience to campaign for change on such an important issue of social justice. It was the Churchill Fellowship that enabled me to acquire the evidence, knowledge, courage, and confidence I needed to take on such an issue.
I have been privileged to visit countless UK holiday provision projects and meet some amazing people who are committed to helping their communities not for reward or kudos but simply because it is the right thing to do. This would never have happened if it were not for the Fellowship. Through their experiences I have learned about the importance of advocating for the right to food and I am still learning about the devastating effects of child poverty. It’s good to see that politicians are starting to listen and act but we still have a very long way to go to ensure that no child goes hungry here in the UK.”