THE LEEDS FOOD AID NETWORK

The Leeds Food Aid Network (FAN) exists to help bring different people, initiatives and institutions together who are involved in tackling food poverty in the city of Leeds. The diagram which you can see illustrates three main areas where people who are working in this field are interacting. Leeds FAN helps to stimulate these interactions so people can connect more effectively to help people struggling with food poverty. Food Aid is a term that can be used to describe any form of food provision that assists someone in a state of food poverty. It includes Food Banks, Food Drop In’s/ Soup Kitchens, Street Outreaches/ Soup Runs, Parish/ Food Pantries and certain forms of Social Enterprise.

Click on the image and scroll down for more information.

The document has been put together to provide a summary of the important work, carried out in the city of Leeds to tackle food insecurity during the Coronavirus Pandemic. We start by remembering what a challenging time some people had, who suffered from the virus and therefore this report begins with a brief reflection from someone who experienced both food insecurity and the Coronavirus itself.

LEEDS FOOD AID NETWORK: "Bridging gaps, fostering connections, and combating food poverty through collaborative efforts."

THE LEEDS FOOD AID NETWORK DIAGRAM

The Leeds Food Aid Network (FAN) exists to bring together a range of food aid providers, agency workers, the city Council and members of the wider public, to help tackle food poverty effectively in the city of Leeds. This is part of Food Wise Leeds and the West Yorkshire Food Poverty Network, which is connected to the national initiative Feeding Britain.

COOPERATION

Foodwise Leeds is a city-wide campaign managed by Leeds Food Partnership which aims to unify, promote and celebrate the people, projects, organisations and businesses that deliver good food work across Leeds. It aims to have a broader focus stimulating dialogue and action on food in its entirety. Leeds FAN is the Food Poverty arm of FoodWise.

West Yorkshire Food Poverty Network exists to bring together representatives from Calderdale, Kirkless, Leeds, Wakefield District, Bradford / Keighley to tackle food insecurity more effectively in the region.

Key priorities of the network are:

- The development of networks in each area, which bring together food aid providers along with agency workers and local authorities to enact practical collaboration on the ground. This involves representatives from Leeds FAN, Feeding Bradford and Keighley, Wakefield FAN, Kirkless Emergency Food Providers Network and Calderdale Food Poverty Forum coming together to share experiences and achieve common goals, including responding to the Coronavirus pandemic

- The tackling of the root causes of food poverty through effective signposting, on location support, usually in the form of debt, money, welfare support and healthcare advice and inputting into Feeding Britain the experiences of people on the ground in West Yorkshire to enable policy change.

- Development of effective signposting tools which are either online or paper based so that people can assess emergency food provision.

- See that food is distributed effectively across the region working with key food distributors such as FareShare Yorkshire and Rethink Food.

- Support the development of healthy holiday provision which includes local authorities working with the Department of Education and more independently run initiatives to provide food and activities to children during school holidays.

- Promote healthy start vouchers which have recently increased in value.

The diagram providing framework for this website shows the following:

1) Signposting: People and initiatives signposting/ referring people who they come into contact with, who are experiencing food poverty, onto an appropriate food aid providers.

2) Distribution: The food industry, supermarkets, shops, individuals distributing food to food providers. The organisation FareShare plays a key part in this.

3) Longer Term Assistance: Signposting vulnerable people onto groups and services that can help people deal with their longer term needs, e.g., addiction.

The website itself, along with people connecting through phone calls, emails, meetings helps to facilitate better communication amongst those already working to tackle food poverty. Simultaneously, we hope the website can help people outside of this particular field understand more regarding what is happening in terms of food aid in Leeds.