The Robin Hood Army: Fighting Hunger and Wastage

Neel: Frankly speaking, it is not my brain child. After finishing my studies in London I moved to Portugal and worked for Zomato, an online restaurant discovery platform based out of India, operating in over 20 countries. Through my work I met the founder of NGO ReFood, which did re-allocation of food When Zomato relocated me to Delhi, it hit me that India direly needs this.

Neel: Unlike the mythical hero, we don’t really steal from the rich – but our aspiration is to create impact and in the process inspire the community around us to give back to those who need it most. We strongly believe our responsibility as the youth of our country lies beyond getting cushy jobs, and we are trying to leverage our learnings to give back to society.

Neel: Anand (co-founder of RHA) and I started off with a few of our close friends. Every weekend we would pick a neighborhood, scour the eateries there and ask for leftover surplus food. We explained our intention of taking it to feed the needy, and they were more than willing to help. Mind you, this was not scraps leftover off people’s plates; it was excess food left in a restaurant’s buffet or kitchen from the day’s cooking – perfectly clean and consumable but trashed as it has no shelf life. Our first few drives were more of a feel-good exercise where we fed 100-150 people each week.

Neel: If we really had to make an impact, we had to go viral, spread the word and arouse people’s interest. And thereon procure more soldiers. Sharing pictures on social media like Facebook and Twitter proved to be a game-changer for us. There was a surge of requests; more restaurants and volunteers wanted to come on board. Several cities across India launched their own chapters. In Bangalore, there aren’t as many homeless as Delhi, so we reached out to other NGOs and homes to which we could supply the food. Anand and I tapped into Zomato’s database to bring more restaurants onto our panel of contributors. Today RHA works across 15 cities in India and Pakistan with about 600 volunteers feeding 4000 to 5000 people weekly. These numbers are a drop in the ocean, but we have faith.

Neel: In Delhi, there are a few volunteers (young lawyers) who frequent an orphanage for distribution. They also often converse with the kids there and motivate them to pursue studies, to read and learn – messages that go a long way, beyond just a meal. Now, at least ten kids in that orphanage are aspiring to become lawyers. It is heartening to see children on the streets and how they always look out after their younger siblings, almost always feeding their younger siblings first, and only later, eating what is leftover. On the other hand, restaurants have been exceptional too. Some even cook a separate batch of fresh food for distribution when they have no surplus leftover to contribute.

Neel: I see the future of RHA with students. Students have greater drive, energy and more time than working professionals. To penetrate far and wide, our volunteer base needs to expand through targeted crowd-sourcing, and for this, we need to rope in students. Keeping this in mind, we are launching an online kit, with which anyone can launch an RHA chapter. RHA operates in a decentralized hyper-local model where each city coordinates and executes its own weekly drives. We do communicate with each other to share best practices, but mostly work within our own city teams. Hence, it is an easily-replicable model; I see every college having its own chapter without us having to explain it to them. This online kit which we intend to launch on 14 August 2015 will have all the necessary guidelines. Other than this, we will use more press, radio and viral videos to promote our page. The decision to consolidate all cities into single Facebook and Twitter accounts was to avoid over-cluttering and dilution of impact. We need to keep the audience engaged, and keep news flowing throughout the week. It has been a year, and we are growing in number with each passing day, hoping to continue doing so as we go on.