‘I’m very grateful to have had free school meals as a child – it allowed me to forget my worries’

Feed the Future: In our third #FreeMadeMe interview - during which successful adults talk about how free school meals helped get them where they are today as part of our campaign – podiatrist Neely Mozawala speaks to Maryam Zakir-Hussain about her story

Neely Mozawala: ‘With free school meals, students can focus on their studies’ (Neely Mozawala)

Neely Mozawala grew up in a poor household in Hillingdon, west London with food insecurity hanging over her head. The 30-year-old podiatrist was motivated to work hard in school so she could take care of her family and make sure no one would go through the same struggle. Now also the founder of No Hungry Staff - a campaign to provide hot, nutritious food to NHS staff - Neely said receiving free lunches paved the way for her to be successful.

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The Independent’s Feed the Future campaign in partnership with a coalition of campaigning organisations co-ordinated by the Food Foundation, is calling on the government to extend free school meals to all children in poverty in England. Currently, 800,000 children live in households on universal credit but miss out on free school meals because their parents earn more than £7,400 a year, excluding benefits. Here, Neely tells her story of how #FreeMadeMe:

“My mum was a single parent and she worked three jobs to look after me. I was stressed watching her be stressed and she was stressed every day. She was always worried about how she was going to put food on the table.

"I actually felt guilty that my mum had to worry about feeding me. I used to save up pocket money from relatives during Eid and I would put pocket money in my mum’s purse thinking she wouldn’t notice, just so she had enough food for us. It was a very difficult time.

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"Having that free meal at school allowed me some respite. I could forget about all the troubles I was having at home with food and just be a child. I could just be a normal child, the same as everyone else - and my mum had one less thing to worry about.

"When I would go food shopping with my mum, I would pretend not to like things that most kids wanted because it was too expensive. But at school, I didn’t have to limit myself. The last thing you want as a child is to feel different. I was able to eat with my friends and have the same food as them. I didn’t have to skip meals.

"With free school meals, students can focus on their studies and as a result, this will lead to a return in investment for the country. I am where I am today because of the help I got from school and free school meals. It allowed me to be a child. I didn’t have to worry about these things when I was at school.

"I am really passionate about social mobility and how everyone should be given equal opportunity in life. Food is instrumental to mental health for children and their parents and for the relationships in their lives. At that age, you don’t want to feel you can’t achieve certain things. At that age, I felt I could achieve anything. I don’t want people to lose that and feel hopeless. This is how people get into crime and anti-social behaviour. I can’t express enough how grateful I was to have free school meals as a child. It made me feel normal.”