Red Cross Blogs

Still living on £10 for Refugee Week – and hungry

By Mark Cox
June 24, 2011 at 12:46 pm

As part of Refugee Week, Neil McKittrick – a Belfast-based refugee services manager – is still living off just £10 for a week – and getting hungrier by the day.

Five days since my last blog and I’m still on course – not a single food item outside my £10 limit has been bought, borrowed or swapped.

On Monday morning, I went to a Belfast supermarket regularly used by destitute asylum seekers who get Red Cross support. I bought mainly carbohydrate-heavy items such as rice, pasta, potatoes and pitta bread (18p for a pack of six!) – and of course my luxury item: an 18 bag mutli-pack of crisps.

Walking out with a reasonably full basket I felt confident, until I got home and laid it out on the kitchen table. There wasn’t much there at all and – crisps aside – nothing looked like it might have any flavour.

Luckily, there was a Refugee Week event at the office, which meant cake. As I stood with some of our destitute service users (they never miss an opportunity for extra food – there’s no room for cake on a £10 weekly budget) I began to realise just how difficult this might be. I asked one of my destitute friends how he does it. He just shrugged and then smiled: ‘Never miss a chance for free cake.’

On Monday night, I had half a tin of the worst-tasting beans I’ve ever tasted with two toasted pitta breads – plus four own-brand digestives that were already disappearing at an alarming rate. It suddenly hit me, hard, that this was not going to be easy.

On Tuesday, there was already a slight concern with my blood sugars (I’m diabetic). It was nothing to really worry about but my body was clearly aware something different was taking place.

By Wednesday night, I was starving but still not looking forward to my cardboard-tasteless dinner. I was also a bit scared to eat anything in case I had nothing left before the end of the week. This wasn’t fun anymore.

On Thursday, I felt very lethargic (blood sugars were now regularly low) and hungry, but could already see the finish line in the distance. This, it goes without saying, is a luxury rarely afforded to many of our destitute service users. They go weeks, even months, without knowing when and how their circumstance might improve.

Frankly, the only reason I’ve got this far is through scrounging extra food at work meetings and social gatherings – and everyone knows (and supports) what I’m doing so they’ve been extra sympathetic. I’ve had crisps, muffins, fruit and sandwiches slipped to me regularly throughout the week.

This is cheating a bit, since people in the refugee community tend not to actively brag about their destitute status. Anyway, without the necessary social contacts and language skills, their opportunities for free food are few and far between.

Now the end is in sight, and I think I may actually make it – but I’m still left thinking my week, tough as it has been, hasn’t really been the real deal. I’ve used toiletries I already had. I was able to get lifts or drive anywhere I needed to go. I haven’t had to live with the indignities and stresses of being in the asylum system. Plus, let’s be honest, I’ve waded into scraps of free food at every opportunity.

This whole experience has tested me to the limit, but it still doesn’t represent the reality of daily life for destitute refugees and asylum seekers. Finally – and this is the bit that scares me – I knew I only had to survive for one week. How anyone faces the prospect of living like this for months on end, I cannot begin to imagine.

---

Comment (1) »

---

Tags: Refugee Week, refugees

The Red Cross values comments both complimentary and critical. However, we will not tolerate the following: aggressive or personal criticism of the blogger, breach of copyright, obscene, defamatory, profane, sexually oriented, racially offensive or likewise objectionable comments.

This entry was posted on Friday, June 24th, 2011 at 12:46 pm and is filed under UK. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. You can leave a response, or trackback from your own site.

---