This engineering professor is providing free meals and health checkups to street kids in Kolkata

India houses a significant population of malnourished children. Thanks to a lack of food management and storage, India wastes about 40 percent of the food produced. However, the large population of malnourished children on the streets, moved Chandra Sekhar Kundu, a computer science teacher at an engineering college in Asansol in West Bengal.

With a plan in mind to cater to the needs of the poor, Chandra founded FEED (Food Education and Economic Development), a non-profit organisation in 2016. He is now running the organisation with the help of his friends and colleagues, and does not accept any donations or cash.

Speaking to Outlook India on this note, Chandra said,

“I am not into it to make money and don’t want people to get that impression. Members of FEED felt they did not want to engage with restaurants and hotels for food. They store food for very long. We don’t serve stale food to children.”

FEED also looks into the healthcare of children besides providing with nutrition. It has also set up a makeshift clinic on a roadside footpath, where doctors sitting on plastic stools, treat street children. To date, it has treated 150 children.

Initially set up in Southern Avenue in Kolkata, the clinic has found its way to Gariahat and a couple more places in the city.

Chandra tells Edex Live, “I had been working in Asansol and parts of Kolkata with street children, and while doing so, I see a lot of kids who fall sick but are not given proper treatment and not taken to hospitals nearby when required. When I asked their parents when treatment is free at government hospitals for BPL category individuals, why they aren't taking them, they said the ambulances don't come unless the case is extremely serious.”

The roadside clinics operated by FEED has over 40 doctors, mostly child specialists. Besides, all the treatments are done at no cost and medicines are provided for free as well. Further, the clinics witness around four to five doctors treating children on a rotational basis.

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In case of a serious medical condition, the doctors send the kids to a nearby hospital where the IAP (Indian Academy of Paediatrics) takes care of the operation cost.

Chandra adds, “I want to open more centres across cities so people get inspired. If we think doctors only want money or are businessmen, then we are wrong, as there are a lot of them who want to genuinely work for the society and these children, but they don't get a platform. So we will continue to expand and provide more such platforms to them.”

(Edited by Suman Singh)

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