Medway students seek soup kitchens for their food necessities
Students in Medway are turning to soup kitchens for food, switching off their electricity, and cutting back on their essentials to adapt to the ever-tightening grip of the cost-of-living crisis.
According to the National Union of Students, 92% of students say not being able to afford their bills is affecting their mental health.
Purchasing vital expenses has been an immense burden particularly for those unable to access their university financial aid. ‘We had foreign national students from the Medway Campus for the first-time last week. They had some hot dinner, took quite a lot of fresh produce, bread and veg to keep them going. They were having to go round other soup kitchens and doing the same because they were really struggling.’ Says project manager, Gemma from the One Big Family homeless shelter.
As temperatures drop rapidly, signalling an impending long hard winter, students such as
Molly Waller are terrified of the idea of having to switch on their heating. The second year Paramedical Science student says she, ‘keeps looking at the meter to see how much we’re using. It causes a lot of anxiety but we either have to check it all the time or we go over our quota, which we can’t afford.’
Juggling two part-time jobs alongside studying full-time she and her flatmate so far have managed to get by, by sitting in blankets and wearing woolly socks.
Other university students have managed to get by, by switching over to more budget-friendly supermarkets such as Aldi and Lidl.
Whereas others have resorted to group their to-do-lists together to minimize their petrol use. In a matter of months, Social Work student Jessica Dudley went from paying £50 to fill up her car to £120. Raising two young children who are going through growth spurts she has felt the effect of rising costs by sacrificing her personal expenses and savings.
With only 1 in 5 students receiving government aid the pressure is on No 10 to help alleviate some of pressure pupils are facing.
