£3 Fills your Bag with Food

posted: 23/12/2010

On two days between Christmas and New Year, at a church in Collyhurst, Manchester, for £3 you can fill your bag with food. Everyone is welcome and they offer fresh fruit and vegetables, meat, tinned meat and vegetables, and dried goods.

Where and When?

The £3 a bag food market is at the Church of The Saviour, Eggington Street, Collyhurst, M40 7RN (off Rochdale Road)
 

Map here
 

17 bus from Shude Hill bus station, Manchester city centre (and other buses) serve Rochdale Road.

• Wednesday 29th December       11am - 2.30pm
• Thursday 30th December           10am - 2pm

For more information please call Rita at the Lalley Centre on 07530 943 804

HIV and Healthy Eating Tips

posted: 13/10/2010

Here is the presentation about healthy and tasty eating with HIV, from Rosaleen McDermott, a specialist HIV dietician. 
Rosaleen gave her talk at the Saturday Space Barbeque in mid September.  

Rosaleen has kindly agreed to share her presentation here for the people who were unable to come last month, and for anyone who wants a reminder of her handy food and eating tips.
 

pdf version

PowerPoint version

Grub and Gossip Open Space

posted: 04/10/2010

This Tuesday's space is open to everyone with HIV. It is a Grub and Gossip open space as part of the celebrations in Manchester of the older people's Full of Life and Manchester Food and Drink Festivals.

This Grub and Gossip space is on Tuesday 5 October between 12.30pm – 2.30pm - the food will include traditional African tastes. 

• Crèche available for under 5s: please book
• Food provided and transport costs paid

African Space returns as normal on Tuesday 19 October.

More information: please email Siham
or ring her on 0161 274 4499
 

Refused Asylum Seekers Fed by Charities

posted: 16/06/2010

Up to 20,000 refused asylum seekers are living destitute in the UK, relying on charities for food, reports the Red Cross today. George House Trust supports around 40 people living with HIV who are destitute.The Red Cross report criticises the government's asylum system as "shameful" and "inhumane".
 

A network of Red Cross "destitution clinics" across the country, including Manchester, give out food vouchers and food parcels to thousands of refused asylum seekers every week. The Red Cross say that this is like their work distributing emergency humanitarian aid in countries such as Sudan.
 

Sharing the burden

The Red Cross, George House Trust and other charities provide a mix of small payments, food parcels and other help to people living with HIV who are destitute. But the numbers of people requiring help and the cost of meeting everyone's needs are beyond any charity's means. Many other migrants share what little they have themselves to help those with nothing.

Destitution strategy
"This is a serious humanitarian situation for these very vulnerable people," Nicholas Young, chief executive of the Red Cross, said. "We do feel that this needs to be tackled by the government because there appears to be a deliberate strategy to make people destitute … for centuries refugees have been coming to this country and receiving kind treatment. It is a shame that is not the case now."
 

Because many refused asylum seekers no longer register with the Home Office, it is hard to get precise figures about the scale of the problem. Asylum organisations estimate that around 200,000 people have been refused asylum but remain in the country. Most are being sheltered by friends, but the Red Cross estimates that up to 20,000 are wholly dependent on charities for food, with some sleeping on the streets, in garages and in hedges.
"In many cases they experience exploitation, overcrowded living conditions, street homelessness, physical and mental illnesses and malnourishment," the report states.
 

Can’t work, no money, no food, no home
Once an asylum request is refused, the asylum seeker is no longer eligible to receive any state support and remains prohibited from working. "You can remove people back to their home country, or you can keep them here. But you have to give people food. You cannot starve people out of the country," said Joseph Nibizi, who runs the Red Cross food distribution centre for asylum seekers in Birmingham. The Red Cross report reflects its conviction that the situation is worsening.

Call for humane treatment - the right to work and healthcare

Red Cross are calling for a support system that will ensure that individuals have the right to work, and access to healthcare, throughout their application until they are either granted leave to stay or are able to leave the country.
 

HIV and destitution
People with HIV who are destitute cannot leave for various reasons, including the lack of life-saving HIV treatment, they would have no income or support in their home country, or the danger they face that caused them to flee still remains.
 

Section 4
The current system does have a safety net of hardship support, known as "section 4", which is available for those who have been refused asylum but are taking steps to return to their own country, or who are appealing against the decision. But it is a safety net with big holes and many fall through the gaps. People are left destitute until they have put together a new application which has to be accepted by the Home Office as based on new evidence. Applications are not accepted automatically, and some, including people with HIV, are unwilling to apply for section 4 because they do not want to be forced to return home.
 

One meal a day – for a year or more
A survey by Red Cross reveals that 87% of people in this situation often survive on only one meal a day, with six out of 10 remaining destitute for more than a year.
 

More than 1 in 4 appeals won
Asylum support organisations argue that refusing asylum does not automatically mean the application was unjustified. Last year 28% of people who appealed against asylum refusal were granted leave to remain, a figure that activists say reflects serious flaws in the process. About half of those whose claim is rejected come from countries such as Congo, Iraq, Zimbabwe, Sudan, Somalia and Eritrea where there is conflict and in some of these countries HIV rates are high.
 

Minister responds
Damian Green, minister for immigration, said: "The government is committed to exploring new ways of improving the current asylum system. The UK Border Agency provides support to asylum seekers who would otherwise be destitute until a decision on their application is made. However, when the independent courts have decided that an asylum seeker does not need international protection, support is discontinued and we expect them to return home voluntarily. Where a refused asylum seeker does not return voluntarily we will take removal action. Where a person faces a temporary barrier to their return which is not their fault, we will provide support until that barrier is removed if they would otherwise be destitute."
 

However the facts speak for themselves.
 

Surviving on £10 a week
If you can't work, can't claim benefits, and have nowhere to live, how do you survive with one £10 food voucher a week? Four refused asylum seekers tell their survival tales. Helpful tips come from four refused asylum seekers in Birmingham, who remain in this country, preparing to appeal the Home Office decision, sleeping meanwhile in hedges, doorways, old garages and staircases.

Read four people’s accounts of survival on £10 a week in vouchers

Red Cross news
Red Cross Destitution report – Not Gone But Forgotten 
Source

Dying with Food Problems

posted: 14/10/2009

Researchers in Canada have found that people taking HIV treatment who experience 'food insecurity' have an increased risk of death. The many destitute people refused asylum or leave to remain in the UK, as well as people on limited benefits and low incomes here, could face the same risk.

Food insecurity means not having enough nutritious food, or having uncertainty about obtaining food. Earlier research amongst injecting drug users taking HIV treatment in San Francisco showed that food-insecure patients were less likely to have an undetectable viral load.

Skinny and Hungry

Now researchers have found that current or former drug users in Vancouver, Canada, who are taking HIV treatment have a 50% increase in the risk of death if they experience food insecurity. The risk was especially high for people who were food insecure and underweight.
They recommend that poor patients in richer countries should receive food supplementation, and that there should be wider efforts to alleviate poverty.
 

More money or a Dietician?

Many HIV clinics in the UK have a specialist dietician who can provide information about diet. Specialist HIV social workers can also help you make sure that you have enough to eat. However the problem is largely one of poverty.
 

The government has just cut the weekly rate for a single asylum seeker over 25 who is destitute and from £42.16 to £35.13 a week from early October. At the same time, benefits for asylum seekers who are lone parents with one child are frozen at £42.16 instead of rising in line with consumer price inflation, leaving them £2 a week worse off.

Diary of an Asylum Seeker with her child scraping by on weekly asylum support from NASS.

There is more information on nutrition in NAM’s information booklet Nutrition. You can download it here.