Tackling food insecurity

More than 7,000 children from low income families will have access to healthy and nutritious food during the Christmas school holidays, Communities Secretary Aileen Campbell said.

The Scottish Government has invested an additional £100,000 in charity Cash for Kids to support community projects across the country. These will provide food and activities for children during the Christmas holidays who may not otherwise have had access to them.

In addition, a further £48,000 is being awarded by the Scottish Government to 12 smaller, community organisations to provide food and activities to children in their local areas during the Christmas and February half-term school holidays.

Communities Secretary Aileen Campbell said:

“We provide free school meals to all pupils in P1-P3 and families on low incomes, but we know it can be a struggle for families to provide affordable healthy food as well as fun activities for children during school breaks.  

“No child should be going hungry but we know that costs can rise in the school holidays – particularly around Christmas. This extra support will make a huge difference to children and their families across the country.”

Background

Cash for Kids received £150,000 from the Scottish Government to support children from low income families during the seven weeks of the summer holidays. Around 37,000 children benefitted from activities and food projects in rural and urban areas across Scotland during the seven weeks.

The additional £48,000 includes Dundee Bairns and Achieve More Scotland, who received support for successful summer programmes this year in Dundee and Glasgow, and ten organisations which currently receive funding through the Fair Food Transformation Fund to meet an expected rise in demand this Christmas.

The £1.5 million Fair Food Fund supports dignified responses to food insecurity. It is evolving the response from charitable food provision towards rights-based access to nutritious food and support to tackle the root causes of poverty.