Eradicating hunger plate by plate

HUMANITARIAN organisation, Food For Life Africa, is on a mission to eradicate hunger in the country.

They currently serve meals throughout KwaZulu-Natal, including the north and south areas of Durban.
Redhill and uMgeni are also areas which the organisation assists.

Chairman for Food For Life Africa, Vick Panday, spoke to Northglen News from his home in Sunningdale and explained how the organisation was born.

“The founder of the Hare Krishna movement, Srila Prabhupada, translated Vedic scriptures to English to make it easier for people to understand. It’s simple, pure humanitarian teachings and people started loving these scriptures. He travelled all over the world doing this. One day he was in Manipur in India, cleaning a temple when he saw street children and dogs fighting over scraps of food,” said Panday.

“He then made a ruling that every zone within a 12km radius of a temple should be a hunger-free zone. Hence Food For Life was born and it went global and is currently the largest plant-based food distributor in the world, serving 2.5 million plates of food per day,” he added.

Food For Life Africa came into existence when a chef asked Panday if he could cook meals from his premises in Verulam.

“I agreed. I saw this chef prepare and cook meals from the early hours of the morning under a tree, for school children and others in need of food. I offered to build a mega kitchen and hence Food For Life Africa was born,” said Panday.

Since the inception of the kitchen 18 months ago, more then 2.8 million plates of food has been served to the communities. Food For Life Africa serves more than 160 000 plates of food in a month.

“Our motto is to eradicate hunger so wherever there is a need for food in KZN, we will assist,” he said.

The organisation is looking for donations in order to assist more families.

“Each plate of food costs R5. We feed old age homes, schools, and the like which various NPOs and NGOs alert us to. These organisations fetch the meals from our mega kitchen in Verulam and distribute it to those in need,” he said.

“We are looking for sponsors – individuals and businesses – who can contribute either cash, ingredients, or volunteer their time, in order for us to feed more people,” he said.

“There is an insatiable requirement for food. It’s always there. When people are fed, there’s no stress. There’s organised chaos, but once people have food in their tummies they can do whatever they need to do to better their lives. We want to make KZN, South Africa and Africa a hunger free continent,” he said.

For more information contact Panday on 082 334 4333.