Feeding the hungry

Every human being needs food to eat at least once a day to survive. The State of Hunger and the Food Security and Nutrition-2018 report of the Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) of the UNO estimates that 195.9 million people are undernourished in the country which indicate 14.8 percent of the population is undernourished. Food plays a key role in building a healthy society and it is also found that 51.4 percent of women in reproductive age between 15 to 49 years are anaemic due to starvation.

We witness the food going waste in various forms, whereas the poor go without food at least once a day. The major food waste is seen at functions and parties and on a few special occasions, and no one feels the responsibility to address the issue. However, a voluntary organisation with a different line of creative thinking is trying to put an end to wasting food. 

In the busy mechanical life style, everyone throws a party and doesn’t even bother to check the food quantity which is in excess. That food is being collected by the organisation and is served to the poor and hungry.

With an innovative idea to feed the poor and the hungry, ‘Amrutha Hastam’ a voluntary organisation founded by Dara Karuna Sree who is also the president of it, came forward to address the issue. The volunteers of the organisation collect the food which is in excess from various locations in and around the city and feed the poor.

Womenia spoke to Amrutha Hastam founder-president Dara Karuna Sree to know more about their activities and the initiative on feeding the poor. She said, “Feeding the needy is a holy cause, as a social service activist for more than a decade and half, I wanted to do something to help the hungry. On observing food being wasted at parties, functions and other get-together gatherings, with an innovative idea, I took the initiative to collect that food and feed the poor and the hungry.

With the association of a few like-minded people and with a team of active volunteers I started Amrutha Hastam about eight months back and had been feeding thousands of hungry people in Vijayawada. They have plans of expanding the service to other districts across the state soon.” The main motto of the organisation is ‘Feed the Hungry’.

She said with an active volunteer’s team of about 25, they collect food which is in excess from the parties and functions instead of wasting it. Irrespective of the time, the volunteers go and collect food from the locations and immediately serve the food at around 20 places which include Railway station, Kedareswarapeta fruit market, one town Vastralatha, near Durga Temple, Nirmala Hrudaya Bhavan, the MG Road, the Benz circle are a few other main locations.

She said that since last eight months they have fed as many as six lakh people in and round Vijayawada city. She said that everyone should cultivate the habit of giving the excess food to the poor instead of wasting. She appealed to the people to control wastage of food.