Jane and Sadia, two of our new Commissioners will be blogging each month, sharing their thoughts, experiences and what it means to be a Poverty Truth Commissioner.
In the fourth of the series, Sadia reflects on stories she has heard within the Commission and others within her own community.
I have found being part of
the Commission fantastic and inspiring. I am learning a lot from listening to
everyone’s stories.
I have been touched by
hearing about how one commissioner lost his job due to ill health and spiraled
down into poverty. I also was moved by another commissioner’s story of how
poverty affected their mental health.
Listening to the issues in
my community I am aware that many are ashamed of using food banks. Brexit and
the uncertainty it has brought has made people terrified. They are afraid that
they will lose their jobs that companies will go elsewhere in Europe to find
workers. How will Scotland suffer?
Benefit cuts are affecting
families: mothers walking further with children looking for food banks.
Worrying about cuts, terrified. I wish I could help them but
I can’t, I fight to look for a way. This poverty is not going away; it is
getting bad – more families getting poorer. People worrying, and getting mental
health problems.
Worry, worry. Counting tins
in cupboards.
We have to fight. Fight for
poverty to go away. The poor are just looking for their daily bread, no
luxuries. I tell women: if you are
ashamed (of using food banks) those children are going hungry. Feed them.
One woman I know who was pregnant
got asylum here. She had to move from furnished temporary accommodation into a
flat with nothing in it. Completely bare: she went into labour and when she
came out of hospital she could not stay in her flat. It had completely nothing
in it. No cooker, no fridge, no carpets, no bed, nothing. A friend moved her daughter
into her bedroom so that the woman and her child could have a bed when they got
out of hospital. She had to stay there for a month.
