With the pandemic leaving lakhs of people without a livelihood, hungry heroes fondly known as ‘Robins’ of the Robin Hood Army (RHA) have come forward to feed those scrambling for a basic meal. An initiative called #Mission30M is aimed to serve staple food to 30 million people in the most affected areas across the globe. As a part of this worldwide drive, the Ranchi chapter too is all geared up to participate in the largest food relief effort by civic society for the next 45 days staring on July 1.
As a part of the campaign, the City team with about 20 active Robins will be targeting localities like Jonha Falls, Pundag, Getalsud, Tatisilwai and Ranchi Railway station to name a few. Comprising of staples like rice and daal, the packets will also contain protein rich food like sattu and soybeans. To provide added nutrition to the children some protein bars will also be included.
“This is not the first time a food drive of this scale is being organised by RHA. A similar one was conducted in August 2019 as well which was called #Mission5 and had a target of feeding five million people across 500 villages in five days. By the end of it RHA had fed close to 14 million people globally. Today the need is much, much more,” said Surbhi Rani Thakur, a Ranchi Robin.
Owning to the present circumstances, the Robins apart from serving food also intend to create awareness on social distancing and sanitation. The kits will also contain soap bars and the volunteers also plan to emphasisie on proper hand washing techniques as a preventive measure against the virus.
The City Robins have also been involved in fighting hunger all through the lockdown.
“Ever since the lockdown was enforced, I have been actively involved in distributing food in the Anantpur neighbourhoods. Seeing their happy and smiling faces is what triggers me to work with RHA. I joined this group in 2018 and since then I have also been involved in the Robin Hood Academy as well and would conduct classes over the weekends for the children of this locality on the streets before the lockdown was imposed,” added Thakur.
The zero- funds volunteer organization came into being in 2014 in New Delhi while the Ranchi chapter was started in August 2018, by City Leads Priya Das and Haimantika Sengupta. Present globally in 182 cities across 13 countries including Malaysia, Brazil, Uganda and Philippines, RHA has a strength of about 58,401 Robins internationally.
What sets the Robins apart from other similar orgainsations is that they follow the golden rule of not accepting funds. RHA also collects surplus food from restaurants and communities to feed the needy.
Surprisingly the organization does not have an office or any full time employees. All operations are carried out through Whatsapp and other social media platforms.
RHA also runs an academy called Robin Hood Academy where they provide primary education to children from slums over the weekends and help them get into full time schools as they believe that creating access to education is the purest form of nation building.