World Food Day: 5 heroes on a mission to eliminate hunger and poverty
On World Food Day, SocialStory tells the stories of five individuals from across India who are ensuring the hungry don’t sleep on an empty stomach, along with supporting the needy with education and health.
While one part of the world feasts on dirt-cheap instant food and processed meals, those more disadvantaged have to sleep on empty stomachs. A 2017 National Health Survey report says that 4500 children die daily of hunger in India, and about 20 crore people sleep hungry every day. The country is going through a hunger crisis as India now ranks 107th out of 121 countries on the Global Hunger Index.
On the other side, a whopping 40% of the total food produced in the country is wasted. According to the Clean India Journal, this amounted to 67 million tonnes every year—the value of which was estimated to be Rs 92,000 crore.
Distressed and concerned by the state of affairs, many individuals have made it their mission to not let the needy sleep hungry.
On World Food Day, SocialStory lists some of these good Samaritans helping others.
Philem Rohan Singh
Philem Rohan Singh hails from the small town of Moirang in Manipur. Over the years, he developed a passion for cycling and would often paddle around his neighbourhood. This allowed him to meet new people and understand the different problems they face.
Philem Rohan Singh
When the pandemic was at its peak, Rohan started 'Feeding the Hungry’ campaign in Manipur, providing food to 50-60 people each day. In February 2021, he decided to expand this campaign to four major metros—Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, and Delhi—feeding more than 4,000 people in two months.
To sustain his energy during the journey, he pedalled according to his convenience, travelling about 90-100 km a day, and focused more on interacting and feeding people.
The young cyclist is now on his newest mission as he is set to launch a restaurant in Imphal that will be entirely managed by a group of deaf and mute people.
Humanity First: This 24-year-old cycles across India to feed the poor amidst the COVID-19 pandemic
Harsh Singh
For years, Harsh Singh, a resident of Dhanbad, Jharkhand has seen coal miners and their families in his neighbourhood struggling to make ends meet with their meagre daily wages or by selling coal bags. In 2019, he launched the Sahadeva Foundation with a team of around 30 volunteers to help them with basic necessities.
The foundation has 12 teachers—eight volunteers and four on the roll. The objective is to develop a system of education where students can analyse their problems by themselves to hone their thinking and reasoning skills.
In addition, Harsh Singh provided meals to each of these children every day so that their nutrition is not compromised. He believes that only with proper food will they be able to study properly.
The volunteers of Sahadeva, with the help of other NGOs, reached out to 4,000+ families to distribute ration kits, and are raising funds for more through DonateKart.
Meet the 19-year-old educating and feeding 200 children of coal miners in Dhanbad
Nilay Agarwal
Nilay Agarwal, an ontologist by profession, always wanted to do something impactful outside of his regular 9-5 job. He found the right time in 2019 and started Vishalakshi Foundation in Lucknow—named after his deceased friend. He started by collaborating with a local NGO to distribute food to people.
The first campaign involved feeding around 100 people in Lucknow. But to Nilay’s surprise, he received enough funds via social media to feed 1,000 people. Looking at his actions, netizens gradually came forward to join him.
He says that in the last two years, his foundation has been able to feed over six lakh people—about 500 people daily—in 11 cities (Delhi, Lucknow, Gurugram, Noida, Ranchi, Mumbai, Jaipur, Amroha, Fatehpur, Banda, and Prayagraj) with the help of 3,000+ young volunteers across the cities. He also crowdfunds on websites like Milaap and DonateKart.
Additionally, in 2020, Nilay was recognised by the Governor of Uttar Pradesh, Anandiben Patel, for his widespread efforts in helping the community throughout the pandemic.
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Malleswar Rao
Born in Rajahmundry, Andhra Pradesh, Malleswar Rao belongs to a family of farmers. His family moved to Nagpur, where they worked on his grandfather’s farm. However, heavy rains destroyed all the harvests, along with their livelihood, in 1998.
Having personally struggled for a square meal, Malleshwar is on a mission to ensure that nobody goes hungry.
Despite facing many hardships, he is now actively working to curb hunger among the poor in Hyderabad and Rajahmundry through his non-profit, Don’t Waste Food.
He started running the foundation by sourcing foods from eateries, PGs, hostels, weddings, and other functions. Malleshwar distributes anywhere between 500 and 2,000 food packets every day. With the help of donations, he serves about 20,000 meals every day. Besides, the group also distributed about 4,000 food packets to dogs.
Malleshwar’s efforts were recognised by many personalities, including actor Madhavan, Anand Mahindra, and Norwegian diplomat Erik Solheim. He was also mentioned by Prime Minister Narendra Modi on ‘Mann ki Baat’ radio telecast. He has also won many awards, including the Indian Youth Icon in 2018, the Rashtriya Gaurav Award, the Son of the Soil Award in 2019, and the COVID Warrior Award in 2020 from actor Chiranjeevi.
Chandra Sekhar Kundu
A teacher at Asansol Engineering College, he decided to do his bit to help the hungry after understanding the ground reality of hunger among the needy.
He started his initiative from the college campus where he took a large tiffin box, collected excess food from the canteen and distributed it to children living near the railway station in the area.
Chandra Sekhar Kundu serving food to kids in Asansol.
A few months later, Kundu decided to scale up his efforts. In 2016, he established a non-governmental organisation, FEED (Food Education and Economic Development), with the objective of eliminating malnutrition among children. The organisation also partnered with several educational institutions and corporates like IIM-Calcutta, Vesuvius India Ltd, and CISF Barrack to collect leftover food daily and distribute it to the needy.
Over time, Kundu realised that despite their efforts, many children were sleeping hungry at night. To avoid this, he set up community kitchens across three localities in Asansol. These small cookhouses run by volunteers were operative mainly during late evenings.
Today, he not only satiates the hunger of over a thousand underprivileged children in and around the city daily, but also provides them with educational and medical support.
Edited by Kanishk Singh