Reading Red Kitchen

We are a solidarity focused project who use food to bring people together and help people in food poverty.

We are not a charity. We believe in working with people, without bureaucracy or hierarchy. We receive no formal funding. We just want to work directly with the community to support our migrant friends, without the red tape (but all of the safeguarding).

We are focused on supporting asylum seekers in Reading. Usually, Reading shamefully accepts very few asylum seekers. However, during lockdown, many migrants who've been denied asylum or are awaiting a decision are stuck in limbo, with their tiny asylum allowance confiscated. This is because the accommodation they're stuck in is providing 'care' via a private security firm. So what does that care look like, that they should have no money to buy pants or baby food or toothpaste? Two plain pasta meals and tiny dry shampoo sachets. We supported these vulnerable people with over 10,000 meals, clothes, phones, referrals and phone credit. for the year they were in Reading. Now, that our friends have been moved on, we've opened our doors and become a social foodbank for asylum seeking migrants.

That's where we come in. As a group of mates we knew we had to do something while the council, govt and others don't, and so we are. We work with amazing members of the community, regular people, who donate food, spare money and serve our friends . We then sort them, serve them, and offer as much emotional support as we can while our friends, often fleeing brutal conditions, go through the dehumanizing process of claiming asylum in the UK.

Come and get involved, whether it's serving food (dm us on Facebook or Instagram), sparing some money or donating some groceries. Solidarity, not charity.