MUMBAI: Unlike for crores of people, Covid lockdowns came as a blessing for 64-year-old Kaderinath Mulla Patel who until then went asleep without dinner for years. Till then he spent almost all of his small pension on a cancer patient wife, who passed away recently, and two daughters, one of them suffering from cerebral palsy. Making ends meet was thus a task till Khana Chahiye Foundation started a kitchen in the backyard of his Kurla slum and distributed meals day and night to over 2,000 below-poverty-line families like his, says Mulla.
Story of Nisar Sheikh, a porter at a vegetable market, is no different. His wife left the marriage a few years ago, leaving the onus of their mentally-challenged daughter, also a kidney patient, on him. His daily income of Rs 200 was not enough to earn him a day’s bread until he came in contact with the foundation’s kitchen. “For several years we missed our breakfast and had no money for supper. But today, even after the pandemic has ended, the Foundation serves us the meal that keeps us going,” they add with a sense of gratitude for those who funded and run the kitchen.
For a country that has purportedly been self-sufficient in food for many years, urban hunger is very much a reality and in itself a scourge. In these areas, it is the social dynamics that have made it so hard for Nisar and Kaderinath to fight. Khana Chahiye Foundation, an ‘Impact organisation’ working towards what it calls “Zero Hunger” in the Mumbai metropolitan region, came up as a citizen movement that has its origins in crowdfunded and volunteer-driven relief work through distribution of cooked meals and grocery kits which began during the first lockdown and continues till today.
The foundation supports two community kitchens located in Ulhasnagar, run by a transgender collective, and in Kurla by a women’s self-help group to support those in dire need. Hameeda Shaikh and Saba, two of the eight members in the foundation’s kitchen at a Kurla slum, said they were earning around Rs 10,000 or 8,000 a month now which helped them offer their children a better education and healthcare. They cook meals for 800 families in Kurla and around, every day and night.
Many people in these pockets are neglected and either do not have ration cards or have them but are not using them because of supply shortage or processing issues, said co-founder of the foundation Swaraj Shetty, according to whom prevailing statistics are disheartening. “In the 2022 Global Hunger Index, India ranked 107th among 121 countries. With a score of 29.1, India has a level of hunger that is serious. The Government of India has drafted a Food Security Bill; but the criteria for determining which households are vulnerable and deserving are still being debated,” he said.
“Hunger in some sense is not the actual point. It is hunger caused by so many social and cultural issues that need addressing,” says Sujata Sawant who runs the community kitchen and oversees the operations.
The latest NITI Aayog report shows 13.5 crore escaped poverty, but 74.1% of Indians struggle to afford healthy food – which means that more than 100 crore people in India are compelled to consume food with insufficient nutrition, adds Mithila Naik-Satam, lead for the Foundation’s digital and partnership initiatives.
Khaana Chahiye (KC) was founded on March 29, 2020 as a relief effort during lockdown with a pilot of 1,200 meals on Western Express Highway by Ruben Mascarenhas, Rakesh Singh, Swaraj Shetty, Anik Gadia, Neeti Goel, Shishir Joshi, and Pathik Muni. It is powered by 300+ volunteers. “Both our kitchens have managed to penetrate these most overlooked corners of the city providing sustenance and support,” said Anu Oza, one of the volunteers.
In March 2020, Mumbai residents came together- filmmakers, musicians, stand-up comedians, digital artists, poets, chefs, football fan clubs, and others-and used their art, their community, and goodwill to reach millions to support a crowdfunding effort which allowed KC to distribute 66 lakh cooked meals and 71,000+ family grocery kits over two lockdowns. “We also supported over 6 lakh migrant workers in transit with food and essentials… in Mumbai during the migrant crisis,” adds Shetty. Anjali Bharadwaj, a right-to-food activist and co-convenor of National Campaign for People’s Right to Information, said an estimated 12 crore in India, is deprived of ration aid in the absence of fresh income assessment made through a decadal Census.
Story of Nisar Sheikh, a porter at a vegetable market, is no different. His wife left the marriage a few years ago, leaving the onus of their mentally-challenged daughter, also a kidney patient, on him. His daily income of Rs 200 was not enough to earn him a day’s bread until he came in contact with the foundation’s kitchen. “For several years we missed our breakfast and had no money for supper. But today, even after the pandemic has ended, the Foundation serves us the meal that keeps us going,” they add with a sense of gratitude for those who funded and run the kitchen.
For a country that has purportedly been self-sufficient in food for many years, urban hunger is very much a reality and in itself a scourge. In these areas, it is the social dynamics that have made it so hard for Nisar and Kaderinath to fight. Khana Chahiye Foundation, an ‘Impact organisation’ working towards what it calls “Zero Hunger” in the Mumbai metropolitan region, came up as a citizen movement that has its origins in crowdfunded and volunteer-driven relief work through distribution of cooked meals and grocery kits which began during the first lockdown and continues till today.
The foundation supports two community kitchens located in Ulhasnagar, run by a transgender collective, and in Kurla by a women’s self-help group to support those in dire need. Hameeda Shaikh and Saba, two of the eight members in the foundation’s kitchen at a Kurla slum, said they were earning around Rs 10,000 or 8,000 a month now which helped them offer their children a better education and healthcare. They cook meals for 800 families in Kurla and around, every day and night.
Many people in these pockets are neglected and either do not have ration cards or have them but are not using them because of supply shortage or processing issues, said co-founder of the foundation Swaraj Shetty, according to whom prevailing statistics are disheartening. “In the 2022 Global Hunger Index, India ranked 107th among 121 countries. With a score of 29.1, India has a level of hunger that is serious. The Government of India has drafted a Food Security Bill; but the criteria for determining which households are vulnerable and deserving are still being debated,” he said.
“Hunger in some sense is not the actual point. It is hunger caused by so many social and cultural issues that need addressing,” says Sujata Sawant who runs the community kitchen and oversees the operations.
The latest NITI Aayog report shows 13.5 crore escaped poverty, but 74.1% of Indians struggle to afford healthy food – which means that more than 100 crore people in India are compelled to consume food with insufficient nutrition, adds Mithila Naik-Satam, lead for the Foundation’s digital and partnership initiatives.
Khaana Chahiye (KC) was founded on March 29, 2020 as a relief effort during lockdown with a pilot of 1,200 meals on Western Express Highway by Ruben Mascarenhas, Rakesh Singh, Swaraj Shetty, Anik Gadia, Neeti Goel, Shishir Joshi, and Pathik Muni. It is powered by 300+ volunteers. “Both our kitchens have managed to penetrate these most overlooked corners of the city providing sustenance and support,” said Anu Oza, one of the volunteers.
In March 2020, Mumbai residents came together- filmmakers, musicians, stand-up comedians, digital artists, poets, chefs, football fan clubs, and others-and used their art, their community, and goodwill to reach millions to support a crowdfunding effort which allowed KC to distribute 66 lakh cooked meals and 71,000+ family grocery kits over two lockdowns. “We also supported over 6 lakh migrant workers in transit with food and essentials… in Mumbai during the migrant crisis,” adds Shetty. Anjali Bharadwaj, a right-to-food activist and co-convenor of National Campaign for People’s Right to Information, said an estimated 12 crore in India, is deprived of ration aid in the absence of fresh income assessment made through a decadal Census.
