The End

Its is Sunday dear reader, two whole days since my living below the line experience ended. And finally I am fed and ready to sit down and sum up my living below the line week. (I'm only just now fed as I very foolishly forgot to buy in 'normal food' for Saturday and as it was teaming down I could get out the shops so had 18p noodles for tea!).

So here goes.....

I suppose I'm a bit of a sucker for a good cause, when the lovely Adam first punted the idea of some of our Liverpool Labour Group joining him living below the line, I saw it as an opportunity for us to bond as a group, not just over motions or in select committees.

I don't think I'm anything special because I'm elected, but I do genuinely think the position that we find our self in can be used to help and publicise good things like this and really I think we have a duty not to 'milk' it as such but to use such opportunities as much as we can to help others.

Day one and two as you will have read where as to be expected, but it was on day three that living below the line really got to me, and it got to me for a few reasons, of which I will try to explain without rambling!

I have this week thanked the lord, I have genuinely prayed and thanked him that my children have enough food in their bellies and don't go to bed hungry every night. Ive thought of what it must be like as a mother to know your child is starving, every mother would give her only grain of rice to her child and do without herself. That's just what mums do. But what about when you don't have that grain of rice, how it must feel.

I have cried at the thought of a child hungry, not having enough energy to concentrate, to be ill from malnourishment. I suppose we become conditioned, we see these things on TV often, and although we know they're terrible, its sort of if you see them enough it takes the edge off the shock factor. But this week as I have stood and at my dinner as my little girls sit at the dinning room table eating a hearty and healthy tea, more than once Ive become upset, that I can do that for them yet other children go hungry. Ive cried for the children but Ive cried for the parents who watch their children at the table and cant change it. I think I'd feel like I was failing, no, I KNOW I'd feel like I was failing as a parent. And regardless of where we live, me and a woman in Africa or India have one thing in common, that unconditional amazing love we have for our children. No child should go hungry, but no parent should have to feel that they let them either!

What feeds into that though is the other thing that has upset me, and its a common theme. I remember when i first emailed round the challenge to our group also saying 'And lets not forget that even in this city there are people who may not be living on £1 per day, but they're living below our own poverty line.' And Ive felt that more than anything this week, growing up at times for us was a really struggle and we where often, well most of the time below that line. That experience as a child always in built into me that I 'would never be poor, would always have a full fridge and leccy and gas' and that's what I work for every single day. I don't live below the line now thankfully, but I represent some people in my ward who if they're not, are very close to. There are parents that I represent who may feel just like those parents in Africa and India do.

Seeing in today's day and age pensioners and young mums in the ASDA still having to buy those 8p noodles or 20p meatballs. And not by choice because they're doing a stupid charity thing like this but because for them this is the every day reality of their lives. I saw how expensive as well it is to eat healthily on such a tight budget, there are no excuses for extreme child obesity levels for example in this country, but when you look now that even the cheapest bag of bananas for example are knocking on £2's door now, I cant emphasis with parents who do struggle to get 5 a day into their children's diets! Everything now days as well comes cheaper in bulk, retailers reward greediness, whilst those who live alone pensioners for example are left with packs too big and too expensive for them to buy.

I cried in bed early on Wednesday thinking of children all over the world laying in their beds with tummy rumbling, and its an image I just cant shake, an image that makes me cry now as I write this.

Ive come out of Living below the line with a few lessons learnt, and a few habits to change. My shopping habits for example with never be the same.

But its also motivated me and moved me to do something more, whilst I will continue to support the work of RESULTS UK forever more its inspired me to also start looking at children living on or below the line much much closer to home. I'm not Jamie Oliver and wont be starting to teach the parents of Croxteth to make vegetable couscous etc. But now newly re elected to my ward I have 4 years at least to try and make as much difference as I can. If happy healthy children and families come from being removed from poverty, then we need to look at what we can do to move them out, jobs and training etc. Because its a massive circle, these kids will perform better in school, they'll educate themselves out of the same poverty trap that their parents where stuck in.

I don't think in four years I'll be able to do that for every family who need it in Croxteth, but I'd just be happy with one 'score' in 10 years time if a little 'un, now grown came to me and said that their parents had struggled until mum got training that I'd help them find.

I'm so very thankful to Living Below the Line, because now I have a focus, now I have a goal! As a mum I don't want to feel like a failure, and I never want a parent or carer in my ward to have to feel like that too.

Finally thank you to everyone for reading, thank you to all my sponsors, thank you to all the amazing Labour Team for their support, especially Adam, its been an honour to be involved and I'm DEFO going to be back next year, just a little better planned! :)

God Bless All

Steph x