00:00Marcus, thank you so much for talking to us today. Tell me why you've written the letter
00:05that you've written, how important it is to you?
00:09It obviously has a huge importance for me, probably on a personal level because what
00:16families are going through now, I once had to go through that same system and it's very
00:22difficult to find a way out but now that I'm in this position that I'm in, it's very important
00:28for me to help the people that are struggling and that was the main reason why the letter
00:34was written and whether the outcome is that it doesn't change or it does change, I know
00:42that I've done the right thing in trying to help these people.
00:46Take me back to that time that you talk about in the letter, how difficult were things for
00:52you as a kid when you needed free school meals?
00:54Yeah, well you know my mum was a single parent, she's got five kids that was all living in
01:00the same house. Now the programme that I started at 11 years old, you're supposed to start it
01:05at 12 years old which basically gives you a new accommodation, closer to the training facilities
01:12and a new school and she worked that hard to push it forward because she knew that for me
01:18that was the step I needed to take. I needed to be eating the right foods whilst I was growing,
01:23I needed to be close to my teammates, my new school, my new school friends and stuff like
01:29that. So you know she made that decision when I was 11 years old and United allowed it so
01:36that was the reason why I ended up going at a younger age compared to the others. It was
01:41to help my mum with her situation and also get me out of the situation that we was in.
01:46So there's always a big element of sacrifice to try and get to the top level and you know
01:53that's the one that we had to make initially. You know my mum, she'd done the best she could. I
01:58remember
01:58we used to go to a shop called Pound World and everything was under a pound and you know we
02:03sort of schedule out the week. So we'd get seven yogurts and you can have one yoghurt a day and
02:07so on.
02:08So she done the best she could within the circumstances but there's some families out there like me
02:13that have four or five kids so it's literally impossible for her to take control of the situation.
02:21You know that this is all going on at a time where kids should be concentrating on schoolwork
02:25and stuff like that and it's just crazy to think that this is still going on at this. You know
02:31we're in 2020
02:31now and it's just something that I don't believe should be happening. We mentioned this at the
02:37beginning of Covid-19 and you know the problems that we were facing then compared to the problems
02:44that we're going to face after which we're sort of getting to now. The problems after you know
02:51it's going to be massive consequences of the virus.
02:55When you're thinking about your own childhood, growing up in Withenshaw, actually things could have been
03:00really different for you couldn't they?
03:03Yeah yeah definitely. You know 45% of people like me, black people, people in different ethnic minorities
03:13you know they're living in poverty and you know I was very close to being one of that 45%
03:20so I understand that it could have went either way for me and you know I'm grateful that it went
03:26this way for me
03:26but it doesn't make me forget about what happened in the past and you know I obviously want to help
03:32them people
03:33and as much as I can and just raise awareness really because I think some people want to help
03:39I definitely think that people want to help but they don't have the understanding or the knowledge behind it
03:44and they don't know how many people it's actually affecting.
03:49Something I wonder when I read the letter, when you were growing up do you remember being hungry?
03:55Yeah of course but I also understood, maybe it was just part of me growing up
04:02I just knew how hard that my mum was working anyway so you know I'd never moan, I'd never do
04:08anything
04:08if there's food on the table there's food on the table, if there's not I had friends that understood my
04:13same situation
04:13and maybe it was possible for me to go to their house, get some food or whatever.
04:18I know that you've written this letter from the heart, tell me what you hope you might be able to
04:23achieve.
04:24Well basically I'm just hoping that the government make a U-turn on the decision to stop the free meal
04:33vouchers
04:33and I'm just hoping to do it as soon as possible really I know they've mentioned that they usually do
04:39this
04:40you know this time of year summer holidays but because of Covid the situation's been completely different for everyone in
04:47the world
04:47so you know circumstances change so I think you know for at least summer holidays they have to be willing
04:56to make that decision to go back on themselves.
04:58When you look at what's been happening in the country over the last several weeks particularly the scenes of protests
05:06over the weekend
05:07as a young black man with a platform that you have already using it for good, what can you do?
05:16Can you do anything? What message can you send?
05:19Yeah I think it's you know you have to do something especially if like you say I'm a young black
05:28person that wasn't struggling in the system
05:32but managed to find a way out and you know help my family but now that I've done that it's
05:38about helping the families that need you most
05:40so I think it's important to have a voice. It's one thing thinking about it and you know writing them
05:47down in your house
05:47but if you don't get that message out to the people and to the people higher up that can possibly
05:53change the way things are going
05:55then you know there's no point having them thoughts whilst you're sat in your house
06:00so it's important that you think about it and then you push the messages out to the public and also
06:06to the right people.
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