‘We, the poor, have been silenced through snobbery for too long’

Social work student and campaigner against food insecurity Dominic Watters draws on his ‘living experience’ of poverty to deliver a powerful call for change
Dominic Watters

Published by Professional Social Work Magazine, 15 September, 2022

I am a single dad. Me and my amazing daughter live in one of the most deprived blocks on my council estate in Kent. We survive off universal credit, child benefit, free school meal vouchers, and we have always had a pay-as-you-go gas and electric meter. 

The shop on the estate doesn’t have the facility to top-up our gas or electric and only stocks the lowest quality of food items. The deprivation of where we live is mirrored by the lack of access to nutrition and energy. This is both a fuel and food desert in the garden of England. 

I would never speak about the electric being on emergency, using the food bank, our cooker from the homeless charity, the smell from the bins that haven’t been collected for weeks, or the free school meal previsions to anyone outside the estate until Marcus Rashford did his thing. We, the poor, have been silenced through snobbery for too long.

Gordon Brown is correct in highlighting the debilitating effects of poverty as this is my reality. Left out, left behind and not knowing which way to turn. As I write this, the gas is on emergency, I have wrongfully incurred rent arrears and universal credit are currently requesting £4,436 of ‘overpaid’ money while I was studying to become a social worker.

The uncertainty-riddled existence that poverty inflicts upon you mirrors that feeling you get when you’ve left your phone or keys on the train, but continuously. This impacts your wellbeing with feelings of hopelessness, being slighted, and a lack of dignity within a system of intersecting state mechanisms that feel like they are designed to keep you where you are. Where I am, my council estate, has simultaneously dimmed my aspirations and formed my commitment to challenging social injustices.

The current value of school meal vouchers is £3 which spread over the week actually equals £2.14 per day. This wasn’t enough to feed my daughter during the summer holidays no matter what MP Lee Anderson says. Universal credit is dehumanising and promotes the idea that you are undeserving.

I’m used to not being heard but I hope the government listens to Gordon Brown as while the new Prime Minister is a hot topic the most disadvantaged families in society are struggling to heat their food.

Dominic Watters

SingleDadSW: BASW Member