A charity worker from Catford has hailed the people of Lewisham for the “amazing support” they have shown refugees in the area.

Iolanda Chirico runs Action for Refugees in Lewisham (AFRIL) having spent most of her career in charity work.

The charity has just finished its Easter Appeal to fund the charity’s food bank which caters for refugees and asylum seekers – which raised a whopping £5,000.

“It has been amazing support for our cause,” Iolanda told News Shopper.

“There have been no negative comments. Usually ‘refugees’ is a toxic brand quite often. Some people say “why are they here?”

“But not with this campaign.”

The Helping Hands Food Bank was set up in November 2017 and runs every Saturday from 10am-12pm at St Peter’s Church in Lee.

News Shopper:

The food bank offers activities as well as food basics to asylum seekers and refugees (Iolanda Chirico)

To keep the food bank afloat, AFRIL has partnered with Lewisham branches of Greggs, Sainsbury’s, Tesco and other stores to collect food they have not sold such as bread, fruit and vegetables.

“The supermarkets give us fruits, vegetables and pastries but that isn’t enough to make a meal,” Iolanda explained.

So the charity has to rely on donations to create basic food bags for families in need. These bags contain items like cooking oil, pasta and tinned tomatoes.

“I need £8 to buy each bag and there are 20 people using the food bank, so that’s £160 per week.

“That’s why we ran this appeal.”

Users of the food bank are signed on for six months at a time but it can be difficult to help them acclimatise afterwards.

“The cut-off point is six months because we haven’t got the resources to keep them on, but quite often we don’t ask them to leave because they’re still destitute,” Iolanda said.

There is currently a five-person waiting list for the Helping Hands Food Bank but Iolanda hopes to grow the service to accommodate more people in future.

“There is always more demand than what we can provide.”