12:00, 10 May 2021
Words by Smiley Team, Staff Writer, London
More than 500,000 people in rural India have received healthy, hot meals thanks to a community kitchen initiative set up by a global foundation.
The Isha Foundation, which promotes wellbeing through meditation and yoga, took action after seeing people’s livelihoods ruined and rural communities severely affected by the pandemic.
The Isha Community Kitchens, set up shortly after the pandemic began, are volunteer run and operate seven days a week, from 4 am till late at night, making 1500 meals a day. As each batch of food becomes ready, volunteers set out into the villages using scooters and bikes to deliver the freshly cooked meals.
Despite the challenges they face, many small scale farmers have offered produce and assistance to the kitchens.
Subramanium, a farmer in Thondamuthur, in the southern Indian state of Tamil Nadu, donated 75kg of rice along with vegetables and mangoes. He said: “I am old and not able to take up laborious tasks like the energetic volunteers do, but I am impressed with the dedication and hard work of the Isha field team. This inspired me to contribute to the noble cause. I know that whatever I have donated will be given to the needy.”
A spokesperson for the Isha Foundation added: "Loss of livelihoods has paralysed rural economies and brought communities to the brink of starvation. Our effort is to prevent starvation from being the basis of suffering or death among the most vulnerable."
As the Covid crisis in India has worsened the foundation has also offered their schools across eight districts in Tamil Nadu, with a combined capacity of 990 beds, for use as COVID care centres.
They have also donated more than £1.5 million towards medical infrastructure and supplies, including distribution of face shields, sanitisers, and PPE kits to frontline workers.
To learn more about their work visit the Isha Foundation’s website or follow them on Twitter.
