Food For All
Jsme česká odnož bristské organizace
(The following text is for English speaking people.)
Food for All is a fully volunteer organization, oriented on cooking dozens of vegetarian lunches a day and distributing them completely free of charge in Prague and at the site of our base in Benesov, near Prague. At the moment, we are just concentrating on how to start, doing it small a first but aiming at hundreds of lunches a day for any necessary groups of people, because we do not want to differentiate. We want to make Food for All!
What do we really care about? Food for All tries to get healthy foodstuff, out of which we cook from for those who often can not even afford one hot meal a day. In these difficult times, when we face all sorts of challenges in a rapidly changing society, we do not want to forget that some of us do not have the opportunity to meet our basic life needs - to eat healthy and to our heart’s content every day.
At the same time, we want to create a viable project that focuses not only on those who find themselves on the margins of society, but we want to help with a pure heart and enthusiasm all those who appreciate and welcome our help. From students to those who had to leave their homes because of the war, to socially disadvantaged fellow citizens and many others, for whom the opportunity to afford a nutritious hot meal every day from healthy ingredients, fresh, vegetarian and cooked with respect for life, becomes an unattainable luxury.
The idea of giving away free food to the needy was born in me several years ago, but I could not figure out how to get started, and at the same time I was occupied by a lot of other activities, but I recently participated with a charity from London, Food For All, and that is where it all started. Food For All UK, which was founded by Parasuram prabhu, have been friends of mine for several years, I go with them once a year to India to distribute food, school supplies and educational literature to Uttar Pradesh, an Indian state in northern India.
There we fully dedicate ourselves in this charitable activity for a whole month, and I also took part in London food distribution.
In London, 2000 vegetarian lunches are handed out every day in various places such as student dormitories, busy places, shelters, etc. I also went with their team to cook and distribute in Glasgow, Scotland, for COP26 demonstrations, where we tried to feed the crowds of hundreds of thousands.
However, the biggest change in my approach to food distribution came recently, when I went with the same team from London to cook and distribute food to Medika, a city on the Polish-Ukrainian border. And this was precisely in the bitter cold weather at the peak of the Ukrainian refugee wave. It was only there that the shocking experience of such a great deal of human suffering convinced me that giving food to the needy is not just a momentary conviction, but rather a life mission.
So even though I expect that in our efforts here in the Czech Republic, with the support and guidance of our London mother charity organisation, we will not do everything perfect right away and we will make mistakes, etc. But it is worth trying because we can not for wait for balance and understanding to be created in the world. We must act now.
We are starting by cooking in a friend's restaurant bistro Madhava in Benesov near Prague and we are trying to get enough money and ingredients to continue this Godly project – to cook healthy lunches for all those who need it nowadays. We focus mainly on helping those who had to leave their normal lives and come to a foreign country, not out of whim but with a simple need to live normally or even survive.
Therefore, we humbly beg all those who can help us in any way and participate with us, to be part of our efforts to balance society, to help those in need and to prove that the world can have a better face. Give us a hand, open your heart and mind, give us some advice, or simply come and support.
For Food for All team,
Loka Saranga das
Telefon:
+420 774 108 016 (CZ)
+420 702 846 345 (EN)
Email:
praha@jidloprovsechny.cz (CZ)
info@jidloprovsechny.cz (EN)