Food Bank Initiative By The University Of Dundee Socialist Society

I recently had an opportunity to interact with the “Dundee University Socialist Society”. Through the conversation, I learned about their nature of work and the amount of effort they put into serving the community. This blog post includes my discussions with Adam Robertson, one of the Society’s members. 

Objective Of The Initiative: 

The society’s food bank initiative aims to be of immediate practical help to people and to demonstrate their ability to individually and collectively make changes and build solidarity. They hope to contribute to a culture on campus not only of care but also of students who can see the power they have to make their society a better place in spite of the hardships we are all experiencing.

1.) When did you start with this initiative?

Two years ago, a member of the society organised a food bank collection on his own. Then last year we wanted to start doing them again but more regularly. We aimed to collect around 1 collection every month for the Dundee and Angus Food bank and after a pause, in the summer we have managed to now do collections almost every 2 weeks and have also now started making donations to different food banks around the city. 

2.) How do you operate?

It takes a bit of organising in advance (book the stall outside DUSA, contact the food bank, make leaflets and a social media post) and then for a few days before the collection society members will hand out leaflets around campus to try and advertise that the collection is happening. For the day of the actual collection, we organise a rota for members to come and we take shifts of an hour or a couple of hours each. This has become much easier now we have more people getting involved, previously some of us had to do quite long shifts in the cold!

3.) What have been your achievements so far?

I think knowing that we are making a difference is our main achievement. We have done some big collections with over 125 kg of donations. This has been done especially with the help of a couple of Trade Unions including the Unite branch which represents staff at our Uni and the CWU which represents call centre and postal workers. Both Unions were kind enough to do big collections on their picket lines whilst they were on strike and brought them to us which has been an amazing demonstration of solidarity. I also think that we have kept growing and more people are getting involved is a good sign that what we are doing is good. But ultimately we hope to live in a world where food banks aren’t necessary and food poverty doesn’t exist,  so we have to bear that in mind when thinking about achievements.

It’s the members of the society that keeps this going and have meant that we can increase the frequency of collections. It’s been great that several of our newer members have been involved this year and in particular, Fiona Orr who has done so much work to help organise them!

4.) Any other information you would like to share?

As much as we are happy to do these collections, it’s important to think about the kind of world which allows food poverty to happen. Globally we produce more than enough food to feed everyone, yet we still have people who need to use food banks. The exclusion of people from their right to food, we believe, is not a mistake, but is a systemic issue that can only be fixed by building up community power and lessening dependence on markets for necessities of life like food. Our collections are only a stopgap, and we hope to build them into something that gets us more involved in our communities.

If you want to join the Dundee University Socialist Society and contribute to the amazing work they have been doing, feel free out to them on their Instagram page.