Woman From Chennai Provide Food To Poor To Save Them From Starving

Dr. Issa considers herself lucky to have been raised by parents who emphasized passionately the need for selfless public service. Her father, she says, would organize annual donation drives for the impoverished and would go to great lengths to assist people in need. Such events influenced and encouraged her to start The Public Foundation, a non-profit social organization, in 2017.

Dr.Issa said that this is a one-stop platform where individuals may donate leftover food, books, clothes, toys, or their once-loved belongings to help others in need, whose passion project has grown to eight centers in Chennai and two in Bengaluru. The Public Foundation was established in response to a strong desire to assist individuals in need. This includes a community fridge program called AyyamittuUnn, which includes sharing food with the needy, and sprang from her realization of how much food is wasted every day.

She stated that each center features a community fridge with a capacity of 400 to 600 liters to store donated food in addition to contribution piles. Anyone who wants to give can go to the centers whenever they like and leave their stuff there. She is able to give at least 100 meals percenter, feeding about 1,000 people every day, thanks to this. During the epidemic, she also started a community kitchen. She serves at least 800-1,000 meals every day in slums, hospitals, and other locations in Chennai with the help of a few volunteers.

She mentioned that she never had to go throw the problem raised by gender discrimination. However, they faced numerous operational obstacles as a team, particularly during the pandemic. For safety reasons, she had to do everything with a small group of people, from supervising the kitchen to providing correct packing to delivery.

She recalled that during the lockdown, volunteers were tougher to come by than at other times. She would begin her day at the community kitchen at 9 a.m., overseeing the packing and making deliveries throughout the city until 3 p.m.

Throughout the year, she organizes multiple distribution campaigns in both urban and rural parts of Tamil Nadu. Her group has distributed approximately Rs 3 crore worth of food, 20,000 kgs of clothing, 2,500 pairs of shoes, and 2,500 kgs of books as a consequence of these efforts. She said when she first started, she felt this program would be a little attempt to end hunger, of her ongoing source of drive. But, over time, this grew into a juggernaut with far-reaching consequences.

For example, when visiting one of the centers a few years ago, she witnessed an elderly woman gathering food from the community refrigerator. When she first met her, she thanked her and then went on to tell me about how the fridge had made it possible for her daughter to attend school.

She explained that before this fridge, she would have to spend the majority of her salary to prepare a single day's supper. She could now devote the majority of the money to providing her daughter with an excellent school, thanks to the fridge taking care of their meals. It's in these moments that people realize how even the tiniest act of providing a meal can make a huge difference in someone's life.

Meanwhile, the campaign is about people who show unwavering confidence and determination to achieve their goals by doing one simple thing: taking action. By presenting Indian women's amazing tales, the campaign encourages them to venture out and pursue their aspirations.