Project Food-banking: Fighting food waste

One of the brutal scenarios of class distinction in our society is that one group of people has the privilege of wasting food at parties, weddings etc, whereas others starve themselves. Hence, for distributing the leftover food at different events and making sure that we do not waste food, Procheshta Foundation has taken up an initiative called Project Food-banking.

Ikram Uddin Abir, founder of Procheshta Foundation, says, "Project Food-banking started in 2016. In our one and a half years of journey, we have gotten calls from 150 weddings and served around 50,000 people. We currently have 50 volunteers working for Project Food-banking. Mostly, we get calls at night, after the event is over."

This initiative works 24 hours a day. Even after midnight, they are available. After an event is over, people call at 01842002023 and let the initiative know the location and amount of food left. Then, volunteers rush to the location and distribute the leftover food to people living in the streets, railway station, slums etc. Also, Project Food-banking does not have any specific area where they work. They take calls from anywhere inside Dhaka. However, currently, it does not work outside of Dhaka.

One of the challenges of running this project is the funding. "Since we do not collect donation for this project, we only collect food, sometimes it becomes difficult to manage the cost of transportation," says Ikram Uddin Abir. Sometimes, volunteers get interrogated by the police when they are working at midnight. Yet, the spirit of these people do not demean. They have been working for over a year now and they wish to continue to do so.

In a densely populated city like Dhaka, food waste is a matter of concern. Therefore, such an initiative is much needed in our city and everyone should contribute to be a part of the cause.

To contribute, you can call +8801842002023 or visit their page https://www.facebook.com/prochesta.desh for more information.