In conversation with Robert Straw of Action Against Food Poverty
“People need ongoing support to help with the issues that stop them moving forward with their lives.”
– Robert Straw
Robert Straw is a highly motivated and ambitious individual, who views life’s challenges as a way to grow both mentally and emotionally.
After volunteering for many homeless organisations including Crisis, Big Issue foundation and Street Kitchen to name a few, he was keen to put his experiences to good use.
Robert wanted to do something different from all the other charities he had been involved with, something he had full control with and could drive forward. In March this year he founded Action Against Food Poverty (AAFP).
The premise of AAFP is not just to offer food and supplies to the homeless, but also single parents, students and people struggling with mental health issues. We want to really engage with the individual by spending 5-10 minutes talking with the then. This is where our slogan Using Food As A Catalyst For Conversation comes from.
Starting with just a Crowd funder page and few business cards Robert went to the Westminster area every Saturday morning armed with fresh homemade sandwiches, cakes along with chocolate treats. Within a couple of weeks he was serving 10 /15 people on a regular basis along with a couple of dogs.
Fast forward to December 2022 and the area has expanded to include Victoria and Hammersmith and is now serving between 25/ 35 people each week along with up to 20 dogs. Since the dog owners tend to move around he only sees the dogs occasionally.
Despite being very proactive, including creating a website, selling AAFP tote bags and Christmas cards, the weekly walks have temporally stopped due to lack of funding.
Can you tell us a bit about yourself?
After leaving a relationship where my wife and children stayed in the family home, I found myself being displaced; going from sofa to sofa until eventually I brought a place to live. This time was very emotionally draining. I could not settle, as I did not have my own space. The situation started to affect my mental health and general wellbeing. Fortunately it was not too long before I found a permanent place to live and started my life back on track.
This made me think about all the people that are classed as homeless and sofa surfing. Their lives are really hard with no real light at the end of a very dark tunnel.
So the next Christmas I volunteered at Crisis and this experience really made me view what challenges these people have to go through on a daily basis to survive and get through each day.
Many had not just been sexually, emotionally and physically abused but also let down by society who had judged them as people who are not worth caring about and they were left behind.
This was the starting point of my journey to help support these individuals through the many amazing organisations in and around the London area.
What inspired you to create Action Against Food Poverty?
I found many of the amazing organisations I volunteered for a bit one-dimensional. Sure by giving out food and other items they were temporally helping people. But this also meant that people spent any money they had not on food, but on other items that would not benefit them either emotionally or physically.
AAFP wanted to go one-step further and have a network of people we see each week and support them though conversation. Help them explore positive ways in which they can move forward.
This has slowly started to happen, but a lot of people move about and we don’t always see them on a regular basis.Using Food As A Catalyst For Conversation, we have slowly begun to inspire the people we serve to change the way they view their lives.
What do you hope to achieve with Action Against Food Poverty?
The first goal AAFP had when we first started was to connect with and serve as many people as we could. Going forth, we would like proper training to be able to support more people’ mental health. We have started to serve far more dogs. The dogs are very important, as they never judge and are very loyal to their owners.
As we move forward and funding becomes more stable we would like to sponsor an inner city primary school breakfast club. Childhood can be where lots of issues start and if not dealt with it can be a constant problem in life.
What are the challenges you face operating Action Against Food Poverty?
As we are in unprecedented difficult financial times, funding is the main challenge to so many organisations in the charity sector. AAFP has a crowd funder page, which raises a small amount of revenue. In autumn, we produced organic tote bags and Christmas cards, both with the AAFP logo and website details. By selling these items some additional funding was generated, but not enough to sustain our weekly walks. At time of writing, the walks have been suspended until further notice.
Moving forward we aim to become a registered charity and explore options of corporate sponsorship. We will always face many challenging issues, but if we have enough funding we can always over come them.
What is the biggest concern with the state of homelessness in London right now?
Having volunteered for many years in London, it is so sad to see the same people year after year in the same situation.
During the Pandemic, the lockdown meant that people were placed in accommodation, but many could not handle coming off the street. There is a massive mental health issue on the streets of London. People need ongoing support to help with the issues that stop them moving forward with their lives.
It all comes down to money. As I said previously, people are given food and goods, this is the easy part, but they need more support to help move to the next stage.
What development and change do you hope to see?
The main development would be for the government to set up a department to solely support homeless people. They would get targeted help to navigate the journey from coming off the streets to having permanent housing and employment.
In the long run, we truly believe this opinion can save money by have a strategy that really helps people to move their lives forward.
What are most proud of when you think about Action Against Food Poverty?
The idea came to me while I was walking my dog Banksey. I wanted to help make a difference to people lives in a way in which I could control. So from severing the first piece of Heather’s homemade Lemon Drizzle and Theresa’s Fruitcake, the article in The Big Issue, Podcast with reduction raiders and the interview on BBC Radio London’s Barking Hour with Jo Good and Anna Webb are all milestones that we have achieved in a very short time.
I remember one Saturday in Soho Square serving cake to one guy sitting on a bench; he said do you know you are the first human being that has spoken to me in over three months. I not sure proud is the right word or just plain humble but this really touched me.
What can people do to get involved with Action Against Food Poverty?
We are looking for companies to support and help us move forward by donating a monthly amount for a minimum of six months.
Also by sponsoring their employees to come on the walks benefits in the following ways; helps with team building, improves customer services skills and increases personal confidence.
Companies can also share what we do on their social media platforms and include AAFP in any promotions they run.
We would love the general public to come on one of our walks; it truly takes you out of your comfort zone and makes people feel really grateful for what they have in their lives.
Once they have attended one of our walks they could always set up a walk in their neighbourhood and share the love!