In 2024, the Restos du Cœur of Belgium distributed 1,631,189 meals and food parcels. Figures for 2025 at this point in the year remain stable. But that does not mean the situation is improving.
Quite the contrary. Several Restos du Cœur have already reported abnormally high numbers this summer – a period that is usually a calmer period. And as every year, the last quarter looks set to be particularly tense.
Poverty has been taking root in the daily lives of thousands of families, students, workers, and older people for years now.
It is becoming a permanent condition.
A new normal.
This persistence of precarity is deeply troubling. Not only because it undermines lives over the long term, but also because it no longer elicits the same outrage it once did.
Yet precarity is not normal.
It is not acceptable.
It must not be ignored.
While requests for help remain high, resources are becoming ever scarcer. Fewer donations, fewer unsold goods, more uncertain collections: teams on the ground are facing growing pressure to keep food parcels going, week after week.
Against this tense backdrop, every unexpected event – a sudden increase in people showing up at the Restos du Cœur, a missing stock item, a heavier invoice – can upset the entire balance.
The teams of the Restos du Cœur must do more, with less.
And that comes at a human and logistical, but also a symbolic cost.
Because responding to precarity with insufficient means and resources boils down to having to make what are at times impossible choices, where there should only be certainties. For some Restos du Cœur, this also means living with the anxiety of a possible closure due to lack of sufficient resources to continue their mission.
The International Day for the Eradication of Poverty serves as a reminder that there are human lives behind the figures.
Real people who are holding on, who keep going, but can no longer cope on their own.
We must not get used to this.
We must not look away.
Faced with this entrenched precarity and dwindling means, it is more important than ever that we all act together.
Simple gestures such as informing, sharing, and raising awareness can prove ever so powerful.
And for those who so wish, concrete support for our work can make all the difference.
Every donation, every share, every word passed on helps to maintain the bond of solidarity that so many people rely on.
Heartfelt thanks are in order for all those who choose not to look away day in and day out.
