Partner Profile: The Food Chain

Our 'partner profile' series features a short interview with a team member from one of the partner organisations that we work with to help us distribute clothing gift cards to people in need.

This time around, we caught up with Anna Brewster, Chief Executive of London-based The Food Chain.

Describe your organisation:

The Food Chain exists to ensure people living with HIV in London can access the nutrition they need to get well, stay well and lead healthy, independent lives. We deliver meals and groceries, offer cookery and nutrition education and communal eating opportunities to people living with HIV in London and their dependents.

Who are the people that you typically support?

Anyone living with HIV in London who is experiencing crisis. We have a deliberately broad definition of crisis - it could be related to finances, health, housing, immigration, emotional or mental health. Whatever the crisis, it's something that is creating barriers to accessing adequate food and nutrition. Around 70% of our referrals come directly from the NHS.

What are the key challenges that those people face?

Our service users are experiencing socioeconomic and structural barriers that are multiple and complex. Almost a quarter of our service users have a detectable viral load - an indicator of low HIV health - compared with an 8% average across England.

Many are forced to choose between food and heat, whether to feed themselves or their children. Many have no recourse to public funds, so are unable to access welfare benefits when they fall sick and cannot work.

Many are refugees and asylum seekers, fleeing trauma and persecution and stuck in limbo while they wait for decisions. Many are living in cramped, unsafe accommodation that is also unaffordable.

As a charity that has always addressed crisis, these types of situations are not new to us, but what we have observed is how prevalent and enduring they have become. The barriers created by poverty and marginalisation affect every area of life, and when a layer of complexity is added by a HIV diagnosis these barriers can be very acutely felt. We are seeing more and more hardship that has become a way of life.

What specific support do you provide?

We provide advice from our HIV Specialist Dietitians, grocery deliveries, ongoing nutritional education, communal meals, informal peer support and onward referrals for advice and advocacy.

What is the impact of the clothing gift cards we provide for your service users?

With so many of our service users living in poverty or destitution, these clothing gift cards have been a wonderful complement to our food and nutrition services. We've had people using them for kitchen items such as crockery, utensils and pots and pans, meaning that they are able to prepare the food we send them.

Some of our service users who are caught in the asylum process with such little income have used them to buy new clothes and shoes - I still remember one man coming in to excitedly model the entirely new outfit he had bought with the vouchers. He was over the moon, you could tell he felt like a new person.

We're a small charity and have to be very careful to remain committed to our mission and purpose, so to have a partnership with an equally focussed organisation addressing a basic need feels like such a natural and effective collaboration.

You can learn more about The Food Chain here.

Support us in providing clothing gift cards to The Food Chain and other organisations like them.