Mumbai: The battle against coronavirus is not only being fought by medical professionals, but the government or law enforcement as civil society has also been playing its part too.
Nikhat Mohammedi is an essential cog among this NGO machinery in that she helps prepares food at the Bhisti Mohalla in the Sunni Muslim Ghamchi Jamaatkhana in Mumbai and distributes them to slums and on roads.
It might shock people to see a woman, leading a large group of NGOs and initiating the distribution of food to approximately 95,000 people.
“We were a handful of people when we started but now we have more than ten NGOs collaborating with us. Moreover, we only cook vegetarian food as the food distribution is not restricted to any single community or religion but to all those who need it,” elaborates Mohammedi.
Moreover, the entire cooking and distribution is done keeping containment efforts in mind in that personnel wear protective gear to remain protected from the virus.
Talking about her NGOs journey thus far, she narrates, “We initially started the distribution with 150 people and today we reached almost 97,000 people.”
Although such noble ventures are always in need of funds to sustain such activity that helps people sail through tough times.
With this in mind, Mohammedi’s goal is to be able to feed five lakh people.
Of course, she clarifies, “We hare human and our distribution has nothing to do with religion. Moreover, our foundation itself is about simply ‘being human’ and our only motto is “No one ever sleeps hungry,’ irrespective of religion.”
After all, like famous Urdu writer Saadat Hassan Manto once said, “Food is the only religion of an empty stomach.”