Camila Batmanghelidjh, founder of the recently closed Kids Company charity, reportedly has plans to open a food bank for up to 3,000 children and young people.
Less than two weeks after the charity’s collapse, its former chief executive is set to open Kids Dining Room beneath a railway arch in Lambeth, south London, this week, the Sunday Times reported.
Batmanghelidjh said 50 former staff had volunteered to help run it. “Some people may want me to disappear, but there are a whole lots of others who saw Kids Company as a lifeline,” she told the paper.
“Children have been ringing me up saying they are hungry, so we are trying to salvage something from the mess that Westminster created.”
The food bank will initially offer bags of vegetables and tinned food provided by a restaurant chain, and eventually Batmanghelidjh hopes to secure a kitchen. She said she would not be fronting it. “I am a dire cook. I’ve never turned on my oven.”
Kids Company shut down at the start of August after the government pulled an annual grant of £3m following allegations of financial mismanagement at the charity, which had no funding reserves. The government has had to find alternative support for 6,000 vulnerable children as a result of its closure.
Batmanghelidjh agreed to stand aside from her position in order to secure a £3m emergency restructuring grant, part of which was spent on overdue staff wages. Immediately after the charity’s closure she blamed “rumour-mongering civil servants”, ministers and the media for having “put the nail” in its coffin.
