UK: Muslim charities distribute food amid economic crisis

Since the Covid pandemic, the East London Mosque (ELM) has operated a food bank from inside its vast complex.

The project was initially set up in 2020 to help people, both Muslim and non-Muslim, who lost their jobs due to the lockdown, as well as deliver food to the elderly who were self-isolating for health reasons.

It’s a grey afternoon on the eighth day of Ramadhan, and lines of women, many with empty prams, are stood outside the East London Mosque in Tower Hamlets.

Some wear masks. Others wear scarves to cover their faces so no one can recognise them. Soon they begin pushing their prams into the mosque’s Maryam Centre, around the corner from the main entrance on the busy Whitechapel Road. From there, the women take the lift up to a disused floor.

But these women are not here to pick up children from the creche. They are here to collect food. Since the Covid pandemic, the East London Mosque (ELM) has operated a food bank from inside its vast complex.

Source: middleeasteye