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