While the habit of losing meals at festivities, parties, or even at household dinners has to turn out to be an increasing number of a callous trend in urban living, a pc science teacher from West Bengal’s Asansol is operating diligently to position a leash on food wastage and keep loads from hunger.
Chandra Sekhar Kundu, the founder of Food, Education and Economic Development (FEED), collects excess, untouched food from college and workplace canteens every day and distributes it among nearly 200 terrible children in Kolkata and Asansol.
Apart from supplying the daily meal to the underfed for the remaining four years, Kundu and his associates cook dinner fresh food every night for street kids in at least three places in Asansol and provide them important training on meals, schooling, and vitamins.
“So many people in our kingdom stay hungry. It is not viable for us to feed all of them; however, as a minimum, if we prevent losing food and give away the excess to folks who want it, I feel we will save you many from spending some other night on an empty belly,” stated Kundu, additionally known as the ‘food-man’ by way of many in his neighborhood.
“I did an RTI on food wastage in 2016 and found out that around 22,000 crore tonnes of foodgrain are wasted in India every year. If we can store most effective 10 percent of that, it’d be enough to fit our authorities’ preparations for mid-day meals every 12 months,” he said.
Kundu’s life changed forever at the night of his son Srideep’s party in 2015 while he went out of doors to unload a few spare meals and located two avenue children scavenging for portions of chook from a dustbin.
“Pained by sight, I brought them to my home and supplied them whatever we ought to set up. I felt extraordinarily responsible for throwing away the excess dishes mins ago and puzzled why I in no way gave it a whole lot of a concept before. I couldn’t sleep that night time,” he reminisced.
Within months after the incident, Kundu made a quick film on food wastage to elevate the problem’s recognition. The attempt became largely appreciated by using his colleagues and college students at the Asansol Engineering College.
Kick-starting his tirade towards the meals wasters, he set up an NGO named ‘Bengal Save Food and Save Life Brigade’ together with his group of college students and fellow instructors from the university, who first of all accumulated the more meals from the college canteen and fed 15 to 20 poor kids dwelling in Asansol station.
“We shaped FEED in 2016 and approached the canteen owners of some academic institutions and places of work in Asansol and Kolkata. Today we’ve got tie-united states with the CISF barracks in Asansol, IIM Calcutta, and some different offices below a ‘Commitment three hundred and sixty-five days .’ canteens of the respective firms provide us their extra meals daily.
The avenue kids dwelling under the Gariahat flyover in south Kolkata and a slum in Joka, amongst other places, are the beneficiaries of the scheme.
While the day meals are amassed and furnished, the company’s volunteers cook sparkling meals for the poverty troubled as they do now not want to serve dishes saved for a long term.
“It is hard to collect food at night time as it is probably too late for the youngsters. It might be unhygienic to serve them food from the afternoon. So our volunteers prepare dinner fresh food at two locations of Asansol. Close to one hundred kids have dinner every night,” he said, adding that the initiative is partly funded through the Steel Authority of India (SAIL).
Buoyed through the fulfillment, Kundu has begun any other initiative called ‘Share your unique day’ wherein humans from all walks of existence can make their birthdays, marriage, or anniversaries memorable by filling the plates of beneath-fed children with nutritious food.
“Several humans have come forward and contributed in view that we commenced it nearly two years lower back. Many newly-weds join us to have fun their anniversaries simultaneously as a few mothers and fathers make contributions on their kid’s birthday. It seems the bright smiles in the faces of those kids make their unique day a bit greater unique,” stated Kundu, who regularly posts pics of those children and the participants on his Facebook page.