Clients, staff and friends of St Mungo’s Broadway enjoyed the charity’s first Healthy Living Fair in Tottenham this week, taking advantage of a wide range of healthy living advice and support provided by the charity, the council and their partners.
St Mungo’s - who support more than 200 people across Haringey who have been homeless and who are recovering from a range of physical and mental health problems, including drug and alcohol use - invited partners including the council and the Tottenham Hotspur Foundation to exhibit local health services and support at their hostel on Vartry Road. Exhibitions included the council’s own ‘Fakeaway’ project, which teaches people to make healthier versions of their favourite takeaways.
St Mungo’s Broadway has recently become one of a number of local organisations to sign up to the Haringey Obesity Alliance, a group committed to working together to combat the rise of obesity in Haringey.
As part of their role in the alliance, St Mungo’s Broadway has pledged to educate the clients it supports in Haringey about eating healthily on a budget, including helping them to develop healthy recipes.
Haringey is one of 33 Health and Wellbeing Boards to have signed up to the St Mungo’s Broadway’s Charter for Homeless Health (external link), committing to identify the health needs of homeless people in Haringey, provide leadership on addressing homeless health, and work with other local decision makers to ensure that local health services meet the needs of homeless people.
Cllr Peter Morton, Haringey Council Cabinet Member for Health and Wellbeing and Chair of the Haringey Obesity Alliance said: “At the heart of our Healthy Haringey campaign is the recognition that health inequalities, based on an individual’s characteristics or circumstances are unfair and must be addressed. “The close relationship between St Mungo’s Broadway, the council and Haringey’s Health and Wellbeing Board is doing just that, improving the health of homeless people in Haringey by seeking to educate them about the dangers of an imbalanced diet and to providing them with the practical skills and knowledge necessary to live more healthily.”
Damien McKenna of St Mungo’s Broadway, who organised the Healthy Living Fair, said: “Some of our residents live daily with quite poor health. Some have diabetes and, with experiences of unstable housing, it’s more difficult to learn how to cook healthy meals. That’s something we are focusing on more not only at Vartry Road but across our Haringey projects as this very much ties in with the council’s own promotion of healthy foods.”
