Munni (40 years old) lives on Charni Road, her family consists of a husband and three children. Her children are also grown up teenagers and they also work with her. Munni sits on the street and makes flower garlands everyday. She says that she has many friends on Charni road, as they all work and live together. She smiles at us when she recognises us and it is one of the sweetest smiles you will ever see. She tells us to keep going ahead to distribute food to the rest of her friends along the road.
Ram, (32 years old) has been living on Charni Road for a ling time now, when asked he says with a smile that this is his home. He has four little daughters and a wife. His job is to pull a barrow (hathgadi).
He says the amount he earns in a day, is in the hand of God, as it varies from day to day. On a good day, after several hours of manual labour, Ram earns between Rs. 200-250. Most of this money is spent on buying food, to feed himself and his family. Sometimes, he saves Rs. 50 or Rs. 100. Ram, says by providing him and his family with one meal a day we have reduced his burdens. He smiles and thanks us!
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Sheikh is a an 11 year old boy who urges all his friends to smile for us while we are clicking pictures. He tells us all about his school and recites the alphabet for us. Sheikh spends his days playing hide and seek with his friends, doing his homework and running around with his pet dog. When we give him a box of food, he opens it and shares some of his roti with his little puppy. He leaves is with a ton of poses for the camera and a cheerful wave goodbye urging us to come again.
The Joyful Spoon is an initiative to provide hot, fresh, nutritious meals to the homeless population of Mumbai.
According to the Build India report on Mumbai's homeless, majority of homeless people in Mumbai have been affected by evictions and displacement, they are runaways, have had family problems, suffered in communal clashes or natural calamities, had misfortune with their economic condition, and even people with psychological problems among other issues. Many of the homeless have work but their jobs are often exploitative and their incomes are not usually enough to feed their families well. They often do not have access to public distribution systems (rations) and their cooking arrangements on the street are often hazardous and exorbitantly expensive to them. While we don't have solutions to all their problems, we do want to ensure that at the end of a hard day either at work or on the street that they always have a hot, fresh, nutritious dinner.
Alleviating hunger : one meal at a time
Officially around
are homeless street dwellers in Mumbai.
street children in the city
go hungry every day
Joyful Spoon is a philanthropic initiative of Arshiya Foundation and our offerings are hunger alleviation and nutrition products packaged hot fresh meals and nutritional cookies.
What we do is simple yet really needed: we deliver hot fresh, packaged meals to homeless people in Mumbai beginning in South Mumbai in Charni Road, Tardeo, and Tulsi Pipe Road.
Here s how it works:
The food is freshly made every day in a clean, safe and hygienic kitchen and packaged on site for immediate distribution.
We are providing nutritionally balanced vegetarian meals that form a complete staple meal.
Six days a week our program provides dinner for 200 people in Mumbai.
What we do is simple yet really needed. We deliver hot, nutritious, freshly packed food to homeless populations in Mumbai - starting with Charni Road and Tulsi Pipe Road. We are looking to expand further in the city.
We prepare fresh food
We inspect and pack the food
We load it in our vans and take it to the homeless
We distribute the food
We repeat this activity everyday
