Save the Children launches first campaign to fight U.K. child poverty

This article was last updated on April 16, 2022

Canada: Oye! Times readers Get FREE $30 to spend on Amazon, Walmart…
USA: Oye! Times readers Get FREE $30 to spend on Amazon, Walmart…

The charity Save the Children has launched its first fundraising campaign to help young Brits for the first time in its 93-year history.

The charity says that Britain’s poorest youngsters were bearing the greatest burden of the recession – having their parents go hungry to feed them, missing regular hot meals, unable to afford warm coats and new shoes and suffering enormous emotional strain.

It is targeting to raise £500,000 to help fighting the U.K. child poverty by making its first appeal to the U.K. public for funds to help children at home.

Save the Children researchers surveyed more than 1,500 children aged eight to 16 and more than 5,000 parents, focusing on the lowest income groups. The study draws on Institute of Fiscal Studies (IFS) figures which estimate that there are 3.5 million children living in poverty in the U.K. and predict a steep rise in the numbers in coming years.

The charity defines living in poverty as having a family income of less than £17,000 a year. More than half the parents in poverty surveyed (61%) said they had cut back on what they ate and more than a quarter (26%) had skipped meals in the past year. Just under a fifth (19%) said their children sometimes had to go without new shoes when they needed them.

Chief executive, Justin Forsyth said: “We need to help poor families survive the recession. Given that most children living in poverty have at least one parent in work, it is appalling that those parents can’t earn enough to give themselves and their kids a decent life. All working parents should be able to earn enough to meet the basic needs of their children. The Government must make work pay by encouraging more employers to introduce a living wage, provide extra childcare support to help parents trying to get into work and protect the poorest and most disadvantaged from further cuts.”

Article viewed on Oye! Times at www.oyetimes.com.