You can't turn your back on a mother in distress

Basch Helps provides a lifeline for hundreds of families:struggling with bills.

- Anna Davis

“THE lowest point of my life was when a cockroach fell onto my baby daughter’s arm while I was feeding her in our flat,” Faiza recalled. “She screamed and I had to smack it off her.”

The 26-year-old single mother was rehoused due to the infestation and put in a hotel in Willesden with just one double bed for herself and her three children — a newborn and two under three. There was only a shower so nowhere to bathe her children and the other rooms in the hotel were filled with single people, many smoking drugs and playing loud music through the night.

That was when Basch Helps stepped in. The community enterprise runs an Angel Box scheme which delivers a supply of baby essentials to new mothers as well as mental health support. Demand for the scheme has rocketed as Londoners struggle under the burden of the cost-of-living crisis.

For Faiza (not her real name), Basch Helps made a massive difference. “I was overwhelmed. They gave me a travel cot so my baby could sleep separately and a bath that I could use for my daughters. They kept checking on me and gave me nappies, wipes and formula — all things I couldn’t afford.”