Rastafari Movement UK is preparing to move into a new building in Downham by Christmas to deliver their services around Lewisham, Lambeth and Southwark.
Rastafari Movement UK (RMUK) are a crisis support group that supplies food and offers wellbeing support for vulnerable communities.
The charity is more than a food bank, offering free hot meals, doorstep delivery services, educational facilities and an advice centre for all those in the local community.
CEO of RMUK, Stella Headley, recognises the lack of fresh and healthy foods in nearby food banks and also the lack of support for those with health issues.
Stella Headly told ELL, “I started RMUK during COVID, when black people and people of African heritage’s needs were not being catered for.”
Headley added: “I personally went to a shop to buy some scotch bonnet peppers, at the time, the cashier told me £6. When I looked in the queue and saw some old people with things in their basket, I thought ‘What’s going to happen to them when they get to the counter?’. Our food went up 300% whereas other food prices did not go up, and still now since the pandemic our food prices have not gone down.”
She continued: “Usually we tend to be the ones on low income because of systemic inequalities and even with our health, we tend to suffer more and so I wanted to make sure we could supplement people with fresh and healthy food.”
“We support African heritage households – not exclusively – but we recognise the inequalities these groups face.”
Headley says fresh foods are important for many cultures and aims to deliver fresh fruit and vegetables including Ital food for Caribbean communities. Ital food means no meat, no artificial or processed foods and sweeteners.
The charity supplies a weekly doorstep delivery service and a wellbeing support call centre for this.
Speaking to the South London Press, Stella said: “Downham is known as a food desert because there is such little access to food services. Where there are food banks, many only have tinned foods and do not supply halal or offer foods which are tailored to the cultures in those areas.
RMUK focuses on delivering culturally specific foods to local Caribbean and African people who may be suffering from homelessness, financial insecurity or poor wellbeing standards.
Volunteer organising and preparing fresh foods and vegetables. Pic: RMUK
In August, the charity secured a five-year lease for a building on Boundfield Road, Downham and now plan to be running their services on a larger scale. Action Against Hunger UK helped with funding and legal support to secure the new tenancy. The new building is set to include ten different rooms, this includes kitchen facilities and educational services.
Initially, RMUK began in a small flat in Lee and now has up to 200 volunteers helping deliver their services. They host fundraisers often and receive food supplies from The Felix Project Warehouse, City Harvest and supermarkets like M&S and Lidl.
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