Today I have been volunteering with Elite Gym in Bolton. Since the start of lockdown every Monday, Wednesday and Friday they have been delivering meals to underprivileged children and people that are genuinely in need.
There is plenty of stuff going on, plenty of organisations and people trying to help but I genuinely fear this is only going to last so long. I am concerned that the organisations and business that have been helping and have gone into this full steam ahead, may soon start to be low on resources and funds to last the course. If lockdown extends, which lets face it is highly possible, they may start struggling themselves as a business, using great energy to sustain the great work they have been doing to support. There are kids living in poverty on our own doorsteps and they are hungry. I want you to think about how difficult it is to home school and add to this the fact that some of these kids are sitting at home trying to do their work and unfortunately there is no money on the key for the electric, they may have been up all night freezing with no heating and in some cases they don’t even have windows in their house (as they keep getting put in by some creature) and to top it off all it all off they have empty bellies as do their brothers and sisters. I also believe that comments such as ‘the parents have got this / the parents have got that’, ‘they should be feeding their own kids’, is not helpful, I don't think it's useful and is damaging in a huge way. All that aside the child is not dictating what size of the TV is on the wall or what grade of iPhone their parents have. Regardless of what you think of the parents it is 100% not the child's fault.
So, what can we do? I am unsure what more can be done on a huge scale, but we can all do things on a smaller scale in our own little street and all try and give just 1% extra. I think we absolutely need to start by looking on our own doorsteps, observing out of our own windows, looking to help people that are in our streets even if you don’t like them, discover who maybe struggling and suffering in silence due to pride or fear as this also is not the children’s fault. I think it was once called being a ‘good neighbour’ probably something that we as adults remember, a good trait that has been lost over the years as everybody has become too busy.
I saw a post yesterday which a friend of mine shared and it was really, really good, it was about how the little people are leading the way, showing examples of resilience through this, through lockdown, how they are dealing with circumstances that we never had to, and we should be proud. I 100% agree and support the testament. It got me thinking though, kids are resilient but in most cases they are resilient because they have to be, because they do not know any different. So yes, they will get through but they will fight and struggle through and I can almost guarantee that this will affect them in years to come.
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