Desi Robin Hoods

Crippling issues of malnutrition and hunger are being addressed by the Robin Hood Army

They gather every Sunday at malls, hotels and restaurants where the rich come to feast. They leave with their loot - bags of food, to the nearest red light or flyover. After that, it's party time as hundreds of hungry people get what is often, their first square meal of the day, thanks to the Robin Hood Army (RHA). An initiative to reduce the problem of urban food scarcity, RHA is a voluntary organisation of young professionals and students that works to route surplus food from restaurants to the less fortunate people across several Indian cities.

The idea of reducing food wastage in restaurants came to co-founder Neel Ghose purely by chance. "I was living and working in Lisbon, Portugal when I came across an organisation, Refood, which redistributes excess food to the needy through volunteers," says he. "So I decided to try out something similar back home with Anand Sinha, a close friend."

The duo started RHA in August 2014, giving food packets to 150 homeless people. The very first day, Ghose and Sinha realised that feeding 100-odd homeless people every Sunday wouldn't solve the problem of hunger in India. So they exhorted friends and colleagues in other cities to start RHA chapters. By December 2014, their army had 200 Robins across eight cities. Exactly one year later, there were 2000 Robins in 21 cities. Today, the number of Robins has grown to 5500, and they're spread across 28 cities in five countries. Approximately 200 restaurants currently partner with RHA, and the programme has served simple meals to over 600,000 people so far.

Typically, the food they distribute is hygienic, fresh vegetarian food. In fact, some restaurant partners like South Delhi's Sanjha Chulha even prepare fresh meals for RHA, using all their leftover raw materials. "Robins use their own cars and volunteer their time,"says Aarushi Batra, a founding member. "They collect food packets donated by our partner restaurants and distribute them to nearby sites where homeless and underprivileged people live."

With almost zero investment, the RHA model is easily replicable. All that is needed for a new chapter is a group of willing volunteers. Interestingly, since the Army is so informal and organic, different groups end up charting unique courses of action. "This year, when there was a terrible drought in villages around Maharashtra, our Pune and Mumbai Robins joined hands and mobilised 75,000 litres of water for drought-affected areas," says Ghose.

One of the unintended positive consequences of RHA has been on the Robins themselves. "RHA has people from all walks of life who rally together to help others," says Ghose. "I never thought much about food and hunger till I joined RHA…Now I distribute every morsel that I'm unable to consume!" says Kasturi Haloi, an engineer who has been volunteering with Noida RHA for ten months.

Ghose and co plan to increase the number of RHA chapters in the years ahead, and want to engage with colleges/universities across India to this end. Further, they're spreading awareness about food wastage. "In winter, there are days when Delhi has 20,000 weddings, can you imagine the amount of food which can be served to people who need it?" asks Ghose.

"There are 200 million Indians who don't get two square meals a day, and we are barely scratching the surface through our work," says he. Clearly, to tackle the problem of hunger on a war footing, we need not one, but many Robin Hood Armies.

Learn more at robinhoodarmy.com/ or follow them on Facebook. To volunteer as a Robin, check out robinhoodarmy.com/join/

Next fortnight, the story of girls from a tiny Jharkhand village who are successfully leveraging the social media to raise money to build their own school