'I feel so ashamed': More Italians are relying on donations as the rate of absolute poverty rises

Euronews visits a store in Rome providing people with groceries for free, as one in twelve Italians live in 'absolute poverty'.

Transcript

00:00 It looks like an ordinary supermarket, but it`s not. It`s one of the few stores in the

00:07 Italian capital that allows those in need to get their groceries for free.

00:11 According to the country`s national statistics institute, one in 12 Italians lived in absolute

00:16 poverty last year. And with those figures on the rise, more and more people cannot afford

00:21 buying essential items like food or clothing.

00:24 Vittoria is one of them. She relies on a few hundred euros from her pension. She comes

00:29 here once a month to get extra help.

00:32 I thank God because I have a roof that my parents left me. But people who have to pay

00:39 the rent, the food, the electricity, the gas, the water, and they take four or five hundred

00:46 euros a month. Tell me, how do they do it? I am very ashamed because it is not right,

00:54 but this is how it is. You come and ask for a piece of bread. And I have preferred to

01:01 eat a cup of milk and you make cookies.

01:07 Margherita works for Nona Roma, the charity behind the project. The group also delivers

01:11 food parcels to thousands of families.

01:14 With the first lockdown, the demand exploded. Fortunately, we also received donations. So

01:21 we went from 150 families a month to 700-800 a weekend. And then, since the outbreak of

01:28 the war in Ukraine last year, the demand has risen to the stars. It is constantly increasing.

01:36 Pensioners but also working families are among the people who rely the most on this type of

01:42 support. The sharp rise in the cost of living is one of the main causes.

01:46 There are two types of factors. The short-term and the primary. Inflation, as we know, affects

01:53 fixed incomes and especially the weakest sectors. Then there are structural causes. The structural

02:00 causes are, first of all, low growth. Italy is one of the big European countries that

02:04 has grown too little for too long. The other cause is low wages.

02:09 Struggling families blame the Italian government and recent cuts to welfare benefits. If we

02:14 are the European countries, it doesn't get any better. According to Eurostat, more Italians

02:19 are at risk of suffering from poverty than average EU residents.

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02:27 (whooshing)