A woman MP from one of the world's poorest countries says she was "so surprised" to find herself visiting a food bank in London, one of the world's richest cities.
Rosemarie Bangura, from Sierra Leone – where 72 per cent live on less than $1 per day - was part of a Commonwealth delegation seeing inside Hounslow Community FoodBank, in Brentford, west London, as a guest of local MP Ruth Cadbury. It has helped feed 18,000 people this year.
She said: "I am so surprised. It was a surprise to me coming to London into a food bank. Back home on Africa our youths are dying in the Sahara desert coming to London. They all think they are coming to the land flowing with milk and honey and in London you walk the streets of gold, where you just bend down and pick money. So I have to take back what I have learnt and seen today back home to let them know all is not rosie out there, all that glitters is not gold. . . I think I have learnt something today and it has touched my heart. I just hope and pray maybe when I come back in the near future, things will have changed."