ISKCON Food Relief for World Food Day 2015; No Child Will Sleep Empty Stomach
On the 16th of October is World Food Day – an annual day of action against hunger. ISKCON Food Relief Foundation has embarked on a mission to reach out to the less fortunate to brighten their lives and bring them joy. With the support of many volunteers, donors, hotels, bakeries and food industry partners, ISKCON has made a difference through the re-channeling of excess food items. World Food Week is foodpanda’s annual global campaign for supporting the worldwide efforts aimed to eradicate hunger.
Mr. Sanjay Tikku, Director, IFRF comments “We gladly take part in the World Food Day, as our program, which has been serving the needy for decades now, was also started by ISKCON-founder Acharaya His Divine Grace A.C. Bhaktivedanta Swami Prabhupada, who, by seeing children fighting for food with stray dogs, compassionately expressed his desire to not to let anyone roaming hungry within the ten mile radius of any ISKCON centers”.
Based on FAO’s research, 805 million people, and one in nine worldwide, live with chronic hunger. 60% of these are women, while almost five million children under the age of five die of malnutrition-related causes every year. In honor of this day, food ordering app foodpanda launches “You Say. We Give”, a week-long campaign to encourage collective efforts and be part of this global movement.
From the 16th to the 22th of October foodpanda will be collecting people’s wishes. The campaign centers on an interactive app that enables users to select one of five stock food items (rice, pasta, potatoes, pulses or flour) and foodpanda will donate 1kg on their behalf to a local food bank. If the post is shared on Facebook, foodpanda will double the donation. So, the more people speak, the more foodpanda gives.
Currently, Food for Life’s largest programs are in India. More than 1.2 million school children are a served multi-course hot, healthy, and tasty lunch six days a week in cities throughout the sub-continent, through a partnership with the Indian government for the ‘Mid-day Meal’ scheme. Education administrators have stated that the ISKCON Food for Life program, known locally as Annamrita, actually facilitates many poor children to attend school. Otherwise, they explain, without the program the children would be forced to work as child laborers to earn enough to eat for the day. Food for Life volunteers also respond to natural disasters, bringing food and hope into the lives of people affected by events such as the wars in Bosnia and Chechnya, the Indian Ocean Tsunami, nepal earthquake, srinagar Floods the typhoon Haiyan, and Hurricane Katrina.