Church Action on Poverty, a Christian social justice charity based in Salford, have collected over 650 pieces of knitted foods to send to MPs across the UK to send a message.
The knitted foods, created by those passionate about tackling food poverty, will soon be sent to MPs, along with a report by a national campaign, End Hunger UK. The goal is to convince MPs to commit to making a difference to tackle hunger in the UK.
THANK YOU to all you craftivists, knitters and crochet artists!
We now have over 650 pieces of knitted food, so we'll be sending one to every MP with our message about the urgent need to End UK Hunger. pic.twitter.com/l3qLXQxLbN— ChurchActionPoverty (@churchpoverty) February 12, 2020
Liam Purcell, communications and supporter relations manager, explained how the idea was initiated: “One of our colleagues, who has now moved on, was our campaigns coordinator for End Hunger. She came up with this fun idea and wanted to do something creative.
“Food poverty and hunger is quite a serious and sad issue, so she wanted to find a new way to talk about it and get people’s attention.
“She came up with this idea of doing something creative, and craftivism has been a thing for the last few years, and there’s a lot of people out there who have craft skills and like using them for this kind of thing, so it was a great idea.”
The knitted and crocheted foods have been posted to Church Action on Poverty from all over the UK since last August, and the charity are still receiving more now.
Felicity Guite, events and campaigns intern, shared: “In the past few days, quite a few parcels have arrived, and I’ve also been looking into the MPs addresses.
“Our target was 650, so we could have one for each MP, but we’ve now exceeded that. We currently have 769, so we are beyond what we expected, which is amazing. It’s incredible how much people have done.”
Local groups in Salford, as well as individuals, have contributed to the campaign with their crafting skills being used for a great cause.
Marie Pattison, a long-time supporter of the charity, is one of those contributors. She said, ” My friends and I knit in a pub in Salford every Monday night. I’ve taught a lot of people to knit, and I find it a really relaxing hobby. It’s nice that you have a thing you can do as well as listening and watching the telly.”
When asked about why she chose to contribute, she added, “I think it’s a scandal that people in this city and this country are going hungry, and this was something where I could use my hobby and draw attention to that. That really appealed to me.
“People don’t want to hear about hunger, and they don’t wanna hear about hungry children. That’s something we shouldn’t ever want to hear about. But this is a nice way of capturing people’s attention and talking about those issues that are real and serious in a way that people can contribute to something that was fun.”
Church Action on Poverty have been one of the leading partners in End Hunger UK’s campaign, focusing on addressing the cause of food poverty in the UK and taking action to do something about it.
Ideas such as this are what will hopefully bring attention to an important issue in Salford and the UK.
Liam finished: “We know that here in Salford, they have the worst deprivation and poverty in the country, and there are a lot of people and children here going hungry. But we’ve seen a wonderful response from groups in Salford in particular, and across the country.
“It’s really exciting and I’m really looking forward to seeing the impact this has.”
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