On the occasion of World Food Day last year (October 16), city based ‘No Food Waste’ launched a mobile app named after their organisation.
It was aimed at helping people living in the 65 hunger spots in the city that were verified by them to get food from persons who had surplus food.
The app also has the routes to the nearest hunger spot to help the donor get in touch with the needy.
While the android based application served its purpose, it was also downloaded by many living in other cities.
Unable to find a hunger spot near them, they got back to the organisation.
“So we developed the ‘No Food Waste - Hunger Mapping App,” its founder Padmanaban Gopalan told The Hindu after its launch on Thursday.
With this app you can help bridging the gap between those with surplus food and the starving lot.
All you have to do is download Hunger Mapping app from Google Play Store, signup, visit places where people are in need of food (hunger spots), mark the location in the app, if possible get the name and mobile number of a person who can be contacted at or near that place, take a picture of the hunger spot and submit.
Those using an iPhone can send details on hunher spots by sending a whatsapp message on the location, and furnish the above said details along with a picture to their helpline number 90877-90877.
“We have volunteers in 20 cities who will verify the details and on confirming it the details will be stored in our database. By October 16 this year (World Food Day) we have aimed at getting details on verified hunger spots in 26 cities in India in the first phase and re-launch the ‘No Food Waste’ app we launched last year,” Padmanaban said.
No Food Waste has a strong base in the city. Launching their initiative a couple of years ago they started feeding five to 10 persons a day.
“There were days we had no surplus food to give the needy,” he said.
They are now feeding 8,000 mouths a day at 300 to 500 people a day.
They have been successful in bridging the gap between persons with surplus food (marriage halls, hotels, caterers, corporates and education institutions) and hunger spots (rag picker communities, slums, orphanages and shelter for aged without any support, road side dwellers and underprivileged workers).
“On auspicious days we get calls from as many as 80 to 90 marriage halls. But we are able to collect food only from 20 to 25 of them as we have only one vehicle to collect it,” he said.
The organisation has one vehicle in Coimbatore and in Chennai to collect food and deliver it free of cost. It is now trying to expand the activities to other cities too.
