Three small steps to zero hunger

How many times has it happened that you ordered too much food and left it unfinished? Many times, I guess. Food wastage is a universal problem and even after much has been said and done about it, many countries have failed to control it. And India is getting worse than ever. Among 118 developing countries, India ranked 97, in the Global Hunger Index (GHI) 2016. This data is sufficient enough to show how serious the condition is.

While we grapple with the crisis of food wastage, three class 11th girls, have already taken small little steps to minimise this wastage. Vandita Bhartiya, Rhea Kapuria, and Ikshita Puri strongly believe in the words of Mother Teresa – "If you can't feed a hundred people, then feed just one." Their journey towards zero hunger began when the three girls went to a restaurant in Greater Kailash 1 for a light snack. "When we couldn't finish what we ordered in that restaurant and saw the amount of food we wasted, it hit us really hard. Here we are sitting in an air conditioned restaurant, wasting food, and outside, dozens of people are begging to have a single meal. We just thought of the fact that we could have given the leftover food to these people instead of throwing it away."

To make a point clear, when you order something, whatever is left on your plate is thrown away but the food in serving bowls can be used again. It is not always that the people order more and don't finish, sometimes the restaurants also serve more than sufficient.

These girls made it their business to know about the amount of food wasted and what is being done to it. "We spoke to the managers of several restaurants and found out about the wasted food. In most of the restaurants, the leftover food was consumed by their staff but even after that, much of it was thrown away because the food gets contaminated," explained Ikshita. They reached out to over 50 restaurants, out of which only a handful agreed to help their cause. "In the beginning of our endeavour, we also approached a bakery and they agreed to help us. But we couldn't accept their offer because we don't have a cold storage vehicle to take it from one place to another," sighed Vandita.

Currently, these students have come to an understanding with only two restaurants to take leftover food – one in Saket and the other in Greater Kailash – and one whole slum area known as Sudhar Camp slum in Kalkaji, with approximately 500 people to feed. They have a single vehicle to go back and forth with oodles of food with a deadline to deliver it on the same day to avoid contamination in the sweltering heat. "We have kind of adopted that area in Kalkaji," said Ikshita as the two of them agreed with her.

Many restaurants don't want to get associated with a novice, even if their intentions are good. In this case, the food might get contaminated; making a person sick and the restaurants will be blamed ultimately.

For the future, the trio plans to deliver food to nearby slum areas of the restaurant they get food from but the current situation demands some more restaurants in the Kalkaji area to help them in their cause. "We picked up this slum purposely because traveling can damage the food. The restaurants that we have are in Saket and GK, so we send one car to Saket and the other (if we get one from any of our friends) to GK and then deliver the food to that area in Kalkaji. The slum looks small from the outside but if you go into the lanes, you will realize that just two restaurants are not enough to fulfill their needs," said Ikshita.

Even though they have scant resources and time, these girls are determined to fulfill the needs of this slum area. "We want that if we are covering an area then we do it properly, there should be no cutbacks on food. So right now our focus is that particular area in Kalkaji," said Vandita.

"We do this work on weekends and we inform the restaurants beforehand. Now the restaurants are attached to us so they also call us. And in the slum area also we have a person who we call up and tell them that we will be getting food for the day," added Ikshita. While constantly thinking about how to get more and more restaurants to cooperate with them, Ikshita said, "Our steps are small but even if we reach 20-25 people, we will be satisfied because it's for a good cause." Zero Hunger by these students is just a small dent in a bigger problem but with support from people and restaurants, they can make a huge difference in the lives of thousands of people.