I have often wondered what restaurants do with the food that’s left over in buffets, what happens to the the enormous amount of food that is left over in shaadis and other grand get-togethers? It hurt to think that all that food hits the garbage in a country like Pakistan, where many go to sleep at night with their bellies barely filled.

Source: theatlantic.com
Source: theatlantic.com

 

A bunch of Lahore-based students have come up with a plan to use all the left over food to help fight hunger in Pakistan

Huzaifa Ahmad, Musa Aamir and Qasim Javaid, who are LUMS students, all majoring in Economics, started the initiative back in April 2015. They named their venture, RIZQ, an idea that, they hope, is going to help them play their part in ridding Pakistan of the nuisances of hunger and malnutrition.
With the amazing new initiative, even the food in your fridge that you don’t know what to with now has a purposeful destination. Thanks to RIZQ, left over food will no longer be wasted, instead it will it will go straight to someone in need with just a single call.

You can even make fresh food for those in need

It doesn’t just have to be your leftovers that go to the underprivileged. You can make fresh food, pack it with love and kindness and with one call to ‘Rizq’, it can be collected from your doorstep and be taken safely to the ones in need.

In a conversation with MangoBaaz, the boys tell us that “the experience has been really amazing so far and quite effective too, as excess food channelization hasn’t been done in Pakistan as a full time job and we are trying to do just that.”

The inspiration behind this project are their mothers, especially Huzaifa’s mother Rukhsana Izhar, who feeds hundreds of hungry Pakistanis by cooking food every single day.

“She is basically the mother of one of the Co-Founder’s, but she’s just like a mother to everyone of us”, they say.
RIZQ has been generating funds through friends and family since the past year but they are now trying to move towards sustainability to cover the operational expenses, and looking for funding for expansion purposes.

Their Facebook page lists a whole ‘manifesto-style’ list of goals that these young people aim to achieve

They intend to fight hunger and malnutrition in Pakistan in the following ways:

1. By eliminating food wastage in the society by collecting surplus food from functions and providing it to needy.
2. By promoting awareness regarding healthy dietary habits
3. By creating a transparent food distribution channel by which people can directly donate food, both freshly made and leftover/surplus from events, and indirectly through monetary donations

And they’re collecting all the left over food on a rickshaw they’re calling the ‘Rizqshaw’

So if you want to donate or have any surplus food from any sort of function (Weddings, Dawats, Home-dinner Parties, Pre-Wedding Ceremonies etc), just call them and they will collect it from your doorstep and deliver it to the needy people.

If you’re looking to pitch in, volunteer or support the team, you can get in touch with them over here.

 

Cover image via: Rizq/Facebook