On October 16, World Food Day, the No Food Waste team, (a start-up NGO), and members of Coimbatore Penta Ladies Circle (CPLC) No. 37, remained hungry between 12.30 p.m. to 1.30 p.m. They observed it as the Zero Hunger Hour and distributed packets of free food to slum dwellers, orphans and patients outside the General Hospital on Trichy Road.
The event was inaugurated at St. Joseph’s School by the Corporation Commissioner of the city, Dr. Vijay Karthikeyan. The commissioner urged the children at the school to think like Padmanaban Gopalan, the founder of NFW, the brain behind this concept, and asked them “to bring about a change in the society”.
There was a rally earlier in the morning at Race Course taken out by three orphanages.
In the afternoon, the team moved to Kikani School, where Padmanaban talked to the students on food wastage. He also launched an app called No Food Wastage, which would help city dwellers to minimise food wastage and share excess food with those who needed it. The NFW volunteers would take the food and dispatch it to the ‘hunger spots’ in the city (see Box).
CPLC has contributed Rs. 25,000 for the development of the mobile app and food worth Rs.10,000 that will be distributed to at least 500 people.
“We also sponsored Rs. one lakh worth utensils. We are planning to assist the team with vehicle expenses as well, in the future,” says Bhuvana, the Chairperson of CPLC. Auto driver Rajasethumurali and his team from NGO Soru , have tied up with NFW in this venture.
P. Rajkumar, the Mayor, launched the app, the IVR helpline and also Mission 1000 K, a venture by the No Food Waste team to bring awareness to at least 10 lakh children across the country. “The project involves getting the schools registered in our portal called nofoodwaste.in,” explained Padmanaban.
The Mayor said that sharing food was one of the core values he learnt as a child. “I was always told to keep my ilai clean after a meal. It is an age old Tamil wisdom, which all religions teach us. I am happy to see youngsters taking it up as a cause.”
