Guest Post: Soup Kitchens – A Laudable Solidarity, But No Cure
The European Citizen Prize is awarded to those who demonstrate a commitment to the values in which Europe is founded.
Especially in times of crisis, the easiest response is to withdraw, to reject the social responsibilities we have toward each other. It is during crises that these values are really tested.
Getting through the pandemic was tough on everyone, but not equally. As the virus started to lose its impact on society, ensuing inflation took its place.
Several months of COVID-19 left families worse off to weather rising prices. Even today, food prices continue to rise as energy prices stabilise.
The Franciscan Friars rose up to challenge of feeding those under the most pressure.
The Soup Kitchen OFM was launched to respond to the needs of those on the social periphery who had nowhere else to turn to. In doing so, it gave hope to the most marginalised and a voice to the voiceless.
Through the sheer numbers that it reported, Malta’s attention was drawn to the quiet crisis affecting the poor.
Fr Marcellino Micallef, who leads the team behind the Soup Kitchen OFM, deserved to win the European Citizen Prize. During troubling times, he led a team of volunteers that collected donations and served those who sought help.
They created a safety net for those neglected by society, and in doing so, fostered a community of solidarity geared toward upholding basic human dignity, despite the circumstances.
This is exactly the kind of citizens whose example we should follow. However, the last thing this article is meant to be is an ode to food banks. We should absolutely recognise the selfless hard work of those involved.
Thanks to the Soup Kitchen OFM, we can understand better who is in need of support through basic material aid.
They are both Maltese people and foreigners, across a range of backgrounds but who have in common their precarious situation. It is not just those recently released from prison, the homeless, and those battling addiction. Worryingly, for example, it is also working parents.
This means that in-work poverty is on the rise. The truth about the success of the Soup Kitchen OFM is it is responding to the increasingly worsening problem of poverty.
The exemplary work that food bank volunteers contribute to society, while laudable, is unfortunately only a band aid on a wound that needs deeper healing.
Shockingly, since 2021, the Soup Kitchen served over 120,000 meals, feeding over 30,000 men, women and children.
In turn, there are important lessons to be taken from the shocking numbers reported by the Soup Kitchen OFM; that the soup kitchen is so popular is a sign of failure on the part of social policy.
For all the Government’s trumpeting about boosting the economy, wages in Malta remain low. As global prices rise, the occasional refund cheques sent through the post have proved to be inadequate. They have nothing to do with a more resilient economy.
Among the Labour Government’s favourite statistics is the average wage. But while the rich get richer, this statistic hides the dark truth that the poor have remained as poor as they were a decade ago.
Those at the bottom of the income scale are always the first to face the consequences of economic turmoil, and they are always the last to recover.
Labour’s multi-million euro tax-refund-in-the-letterbox schemes have done nothing to improve the quality of life of those on the bottom of the income scale. While the Government continues to finance its friends, charities are cropping up to fill in the gaps.
A serious rethink is needed.
While inflation persists, the Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived (FEAD), which I negotiated as part of the European Social Fund+ in the last legislature, should continue to be used.
In a roundtable conference I convened earlier this year, the takeaway from international food banks was that aid was available, but it was difficult to target with needs of groups changing from one day to another.
Social justice demands more than what the Labour Government is doing.
One quote that emerged from the roundtable conference, attributed to Desmond Tutu, is very pertinent:
“We need to stop just pulling people out of the river. We need to go upstream and find out why they’re falling in.”
Charity is an important quality for which the Maltese are renowned. The point, however, is that we cannot allow it to co-opt fairness, equality, and justice.
While I congratulate the Soup Kitchen OFM for deservedly being the 2023 Maltese winners of the European Citizens Prize, it should serve as a wakeup call for our government’s approach to its skewed priorities are far as wealth distribution is concerned.
Tag someone who should read Casa’s perspective