(Finance) – I am over 3.1 million poor people in Italy needed public aid to eat in soup kitchens or with the delivery of food parcels. The number of needy children under 15 who received assistance with eating exceeded 630 thousandpractically a fifth of the total number of those assisted, to which they must be added 356 thousand elderly people over 65 years old as well as an audience of hunger and discomfort that it involves more than 2.1 million people between 16 and 64 years old. This is what I estimate Coldiretti on data from Fund for European Aid to the Most Deprived (FEAD) referring to Caritas report on poverty.
Among all those who received help for food – underlines Coldiretti – more than 1 in 5 (23%) is a migrant who in our country cannot get their “daily bread” on their own, but there are also more 90 thousand homeless living on the streets, in emergency shelters, in tents or even in cars and almost 34 thousand disabled people. In 2022 – explains Coldiretti – they also received assistance to eat 48 thousand Ukrainians precisely in the year in which the country was invaded and devastated by the Russian army.
Against poverty – concludes Coldiretti – solidarity has also grown and has extended from voluntary organizations to businesses and individual citizens starting from the experience of the suspended expenditure of the markets of Friendly Campaign thanks to which approximately 9 million kilos of 100% Italian, high-quality, zero-kilometre fruit, vegetables, cheeses, cured meats, pasta, tomato preserves, flour, wine and oil were collected, donated to those most in need.