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On the eighth day of Ramadan, a group of women, many with empty prams, stood in line outside the East London Mosque in Tower Hamlets. Some wore masks, while others covered their faces with scarves to avoid recognition. These women were not there to pick up children from the creche but to collect food. Since the Covid pandemic, the East London Mosque has operated a food bank from within its vast complex. Initially, the project was set up to help people, both Muslim and non-Muslim, who lost their jobs due to the lockdown and deliver food to the elderly who were self-isolating for health reasons. However, the cost of living crisis in the UK has pushed the demand for the food bank’s services to unprecedented levels, leaving volunteers struggling to meet the needs of a community suffering the highest levels of deprivation in the British capital.
Tower Hamlets, where the mosque is located, is regarded by many measures as the poorest borough in London. It has the highest level of child poverty in the UK, with 56 percent of children in 2021 living in poverty. Tower Hamlets is also home to a sizeable Bangladeshi and Somali Muslim community. The number of people using the food bank and attending free iftar meals provided by the mosque was at an all-time high. Nearly a thousand people came to the centre every day to break their fast, double the numbers in previous years.
For Muslim communities, the cost of living crisis has been particularly challenging. Muslims donate millions of pounds to charitable causes each year but live disproportionately in the country’s most deprived areas. Data from the Office for National Statistics (ONS) shows that more than two-thirds of England and Wales’s 2.6m Muslim population live in areas with high unemployment. Food prices in Britain are rising at the fastest rate in more than 40 years. In January, inflation for food and non-alcoholic beverages stood at 16.8 percent. The problem has been further compounded as the price of essentials, such as rice and cooking oil, has risen by more than 10 percent during the last year.
The East London Mosque has noticed growing numbers of refugees using its services, especially asylum seekers in hotels or temporary housing who cannot legally work while their asylum applications are processed. UK Home Office figures show that 45,000 asylum seekers were in hotels across Britain, including Tower Hamlets, as of April 2023, with an undisclosed number living in temporary accommodation. The UK’s worsening cost of living crisis has pushed demand for food banks’ services to unprecedented levels, leaving volunteers struggling to meet the needs of a community suffering from the highest levels of deprivation in the British capital.
