Marcush Rashford fronts massive new campaign to end child poverty in the UK

Manchester United striker Marcus Rashford is leading a huge campaign to end child poverty in the UK, and has urged every single MP to back the campaign.

The football star who forced Boris Johnson to extend free school meals into the summer holidays in a massive u-turn by the government earlier this year is continuing his efforts. 

Working with many UK supermarkets and food retailers, Rashford has created the ‘National Food Strategy’.

The campaign should see expansion of free school meals, school holiday support and the Healthy Start voucher scheme to ensure no child goes hungry. 

Rashford, who is just 22, has written to every MP in the country to urge them to back the campaign. 

The letter sees him write about meeting a mother of two young sons living off three slices of bread a day. She cooks them in hot water and sugar, hoping the ‘porridge consistency might better sustain the hunger of her one-year old child’.

The letter also speaks of a family, who sleep on one mattress on the floor after selling everything valuable to put food on the table. 

He writes: “This is the true reality of England in 2020”.

The letter adds: “Within two days of sitting with these families, I could better understand how food poverty is contributing to social unrest.

“Watching a young boy keeping it together whilst his mother sobbed alongside him, feeling like he has to step up to protect his family and alleviate some of that worry. He was nine-years-old…

“I know that feeling. I remember the sound of my mum crying herself to sleep to this day, having worked a 14-hour shift, unsure how she was going to make ends meet.

“That was my reality and thankfully I had the talent to kick a ball around to pull us all out of that situation. Many can’t find that way out and aren’t being offered a helping hand to do so.

“Those most at risk aren’t in a position and don’t have the platform to scream help from the top of the rooftops but, for those ready to speak, my intention is to offer them the platform to do so, and for those who aren’t, I will continue to be their voice and act on their behalf.”

Marcus Rashford, with Aldi, Asda, Co-op, Deliveroo, FareShare, Food Foundation, Iceland, Kellogg’s, Lidl, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and Waitrose, has formed the ‘Child Food Poverty Task Force’.

The task force aims to fund free school meals for every child from a household on Universal Credit or equivalent, adding 1.5 seven-16 year old children. 

It will expand to a further 1.1m children with increases in Healthy Start vouchers (from values of £3.10 to £4.25 per week) that include food and holiday provision for all children on free school meals. This scheme will expand to all those on Universal Credit or equivalent and will reach an additional 290,000 pregnant women and children under the age of four. 

Rashford added: “These children are the future – our next generation of NHS workers, police officers, footballers and politicians.

“Allow our children to believe that, regardless of the cycle, they can be anything they put their mind to.

“The topic of child food poverty will always be greeted with judgement, excuse and assumption but, at the end of the day, the only valid response we should be giving is, whatever the situation, it is NEVER the child’s fault.”