3 out of 4 stars
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In 2013, smart, young men in suits from the council estate were rummaging for stuff in London road bins at eight-thirty in the morning. What was going on?
Food Bank Britain by Ray Barron Woolford is a nonfiction book with 48 standard pages (78 pages on a Kindle; 134 pages on eReader Prestigio); 250 words per page. This short but concise book was published by Deptford Heritage Publishing on November 29, 2017. It includes pictures, links to news articles and blogs. The book tackles the history of Food Bank Britain and it's purpose. More than that, the book uncovers a huge humanity concern aside from just feeding the world - "poverty porn" and the heart-wrenching experiences of the food bank clients.
What glued me on my seat while reading this book from the start until the end was the shocking, superseded news about food crises in London and in Canada that I wouldn't have known if I had not read this book. I found it hard to believe that in the seventh richest economy in the world, food banks, and food collections were going on in London not to feed the starving in Africa, but the working poor in London. I never thought these countries underwent food crisis same as the poor countries in the world.
I felt the author's heart melted upon hearing the concerns of the poor people who came to ask for food assistance. The problems he was facing while doing his best to expand his food bank to cater all the needs of the poor and oppressed were not easy to solve. He could have enjoyed his life and not minded other's business, but he walked outside of his comfort zone and extended his hands to help others who were not in any way related to him. I laud this author for his charitable instincts and his fights for his firm principles in life.
The impact of poverty together with low salary, and high rents and bills resulted in tragic incidents including high profile death where people chose suicide over starving. Others chose to steal rather than to ask help on food banks and to beg. Some parents chose to have their children absent from school with an alibi of sickness rather than admitting they didn't have food to eat. A number of workers were not able to secure vouchers because they had a job, so they rummaged through road bins for food and walked from home to work and vice versa while waiting for their salary.
Here's my favourite quote in the book: "We, the 99%, have the power and the vote to force change: no political campaign has ever been won without a fight, a sustainable economy built on social justice on a global stage is for us to win, but that takes each of us to make a stand, challenge the figures and the bigotry and get active in our communities." It was one of the author's messages to the people. He emphasized a cause that he was fighting for - a change for the betterment of the people in the world. He was challenging the people and the one who reigned to have some changes to alleviate poverty for the general public.
Due to the number of errors ranging from left off punctuation, double punctuation, random capitalization, spacing and grammatical errors that are peppered in the contents, I rate Food Bank Britain by Ray Barron Woolford 3 out of 4 stars and recommend this book to those who are into news, politics, food bank, economics and philanthropic works. This book raises awareness and bids people to volunteer or to donate to charities. To those who wish to make their own food banks, the author included useful details at the end of this book. However, those who wish to donate to this cause, the donation link posted will take you to an error page.
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Food Bank Britain
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