Food for All

Inspiration

Resources like food are limited in the world. In times of a global pandemic, we need to be able to ensure that vulnerable members of the society lose their lives due to lack of food.

It is possible to arrange for monetary contributions and volunteers, but the most important aspect is effective and transparent execution of such voluntary action. It is of prime importance to be able to clearly identify the recipients so that resources like food, time spent by volunteers, money spent on transportation of rescue material etc is effectively monitored and tracked.

While feeding the birds, it occurred to me that birds might need more help during the lockdown since they depend on human food spill. Similarly, there are many under-privileged sections of the society who might be struggling because they fall outside the radar of governmental help. This resulted in the Food for All concept, shared here. This concept is proposed to help ensure that we can reach out to every person who needs help.

To kickstart, we formed a team of 15 people to brainstorm on how can we reach out to the people who are in need of help.

Currently many Government/Government officials/NGO/Trust/Volunteers etc are trying to collaborate and work as group. In our discussions it emerged that people are willing to contribute, but really unsure on how the funds will be utilized. Also, due to social distancing required to prevent further transmission of COVID-19, contributors are willing to donate food rations instead of money. We were able to identify the following issues that need to be addressed:

• Lack of transparency

The contributors want to know how their contributions are being utilized. They also want to ensure that the donations do reach the needy instead of being concentrated in a few pockets. If the transparency is missing, it could lead to a scarcity of funds/ contributions.

• Lack of centralized monitoring

Volunteers are spending a lot of time to identify the needy. This leads to a crunch in the time that could be better spent in reaching out to the people who need help. While, there are some records available at government or local level, they are isolated and not centralized. This again leads to loss of valuable time and trust of the contributors.

• Lack of need- based assessment

We realized that most of the providers provide equal quantity of rations to all needy families. But this one-size-fits-all approach is not the most effective It creates a discrepancy and social injustice. While, some support organizations have started to provide cooked food to ensure that no hoarding of essential food items is possible, it also means that more volunteers are required as well as a better approach for resource management.

What it does

The concept tries to improve resource management and financial transparency in the volunteer efforts.

Before we can even implement the concept, it is imperative to have volunteers on board who have located close to the affected members of the society. To encourage volunteers to join the cause, we propose to consider this situation as war between the World and the Virus, and request at least one person from each family to sign up as a volunteer. In this age of internet and software applications, volunteering is not just limited to being on the ground. We can achieve a lot while being at home and isolating. We further propose to provide additional benefits to the volunteers like medical insurance plan for 3 months, consideration while applying for government jobs or while applying for loans.

There are 3 distinct areas that we can address using Food for All:

Area 1: Volunteer Management

• It creates a rota system for the volunteers registered in the system. This will help to address issues like fatigue or impact due to volunteers affected by COVID 19.

• It allows for distribution of various tasks between volunteers with proper roles and responsibilities.

1) Some of the tasks for team staying inside the house (Team A) could include:

a) Planning for the day

b) Updating the system

c) Providing suggestions to resolve any issue

d) Making phone call to people which help the system to correct the data and help people psychologically

e) Raise funds raising using the transparent report

2) Some tasks for the team going outside the house (Team B) could include:

a) food preparation and distribution

b) give information to the team to update the System

c) take photo/video as proof (used in transparency)

Area 2: Support management

• It allows for collecting data points regularly to identify the requirements on timely basis so that demand and supply can be manage effectively

• Allows volunteers to offer social, emotional, and psychological support to the people in need by making phone calls daily

Area 3: Communication management

• A centralized hub allows for communication with people staying in home due to lockdown. Some of the possible ways they can help include:

a) contributing their effort to help this situation

b) giving suggestions to resolve any issue in food distribution chain

c) collaborating closely with the suppliers

d) supporting centralised fund raising

How We built it

For the past one month, our team has discussed with more than 200 people and talked for more than 2000 hours.

At the moment, we have 3 streams working parallelly:

• Supporting Relief work in Vallanadu and few adjoining villages

• Getting list of volunteers/NGO in other villages and town Once Stage 1 and stage 2 is completed in Vallanadu, then roll out in few more villages to find how efficient the system.

• Educating people who are staying home on how they can contribute (their time) in this situation

Challenges I ran into

• Training the volunteers team to work collaboratively The volunteers are comfortable with photo/video/talking currently, for which they use WhatsApp/ Tiktok/ YouTube etc. We are training them to use share-able applications like Google Sheet and Telegram, that allow them to work more collaboratively.

• Educating the volunteers and others the benefit of the system At the moment, the general feeling is that the lockdown will be lifted soon. However, the current government directives indicate that it might be prolonged. We are trying to make people aware of the situation and show how our concept can help in relief work. In the event of the prolonged lockdown for than 2 months, a huge number of people might be affected due to reduced employment opportunities. Our concept can prove to be very effective for proper resource management and to bring in transparency.

Accomplishments that I'm proud of

1. In my last 40 years of my life, I have never done anything like this, where I have contributed positively towards the benefit of the society.
2. We are very happy that during this lock down period, we are using our time effectively by trying to understand/ help the situation, while still staying at home.
3. With the implementation of Stage 1 (transitioning to Google Sheet and Telegram – implementation in progress), volunteers are realizing the true potential of collaborative working. They are excited to see how easy it is to manage the resources, maintain inventory, and maintain a high level of transparency.

What I learned

1. Working with the grassroot level volunteers has given me an opportunity to work on my communication skills. It is a completely new learning as things work differently from the corporate environment.
2. This project has given me a new perspective about life and myself. I have learnt that there is always something new to learn even when you have grown up and settled professionally.
3. This project has allowed me space to appreciate how, trapped in the daily rut of our lives, it is easy to become self- centred. Volunteering and charity work teach one to be compassionate, thoughtful and selfless.

What's next for Food for All

• Create a Communication Hub with people

Stage 1: use WhatsApp group for discussion

Stage 2: create a Process flow and alerting system (mobile app/web app)

• Collect and Manage different data

Stage 1: manage using Google Sheet

Stage 2: use centralised database and manage using mobile app/web app

Stage 3: create an app which uses block chain and can be distributed. Block Chain will ensure transparency as it’s validation at each step of transaction.

• Report the tracking transparency

Donor’s Fund -> Food Material -> Cooking -> Food packing -> Food Distribution

Stage 1: use Telegram and Google Sheet

Stage 2: create a Search option in mobile app/web app

• Continue the learning.

We aim to expand the team, enhance the system and improve it to achieve the goal of ‘No one should die for the lack of food’.