Food for People

Hargrave Arcade's chosen Cause of the Month for April 2014 is Food for People, an initiative of The Prem Rawat Foundation (TPRF).

The idea for this project came to Peace Ambassador Prem Rawat during one of his many travels around the globe. Meeting a number of malnourished kids from the impoverished village of Bantoli in India, Prem discovered that children under age five had twice the mortality rate than everywhere else in India. Fueled by compassion, his inventive mind went to work.

His idea consisted of building a facility where the youth could receive meals so they could actually start progressing in school. The vision was not to just fill them up with any food but to give them the dignity of eating from nutritious local recipes and respecting their culture, hence the name Food for People. The children would also be taught healthy hygiene practices thus securing a prosperous potential for their future as well as their village.

Because of it's brilliant simplicity and beauty, I must include the complete rundown of the project vision as worded on the TPRF website: www.TPRF.org

• Provide daily nutritious, hot meals in the local cuisine for children & infirm adults
• Include hygiene education to help stem the spread of disease
• Hire local villagers to help run the facility
• Grow and/or purchase food locally to support the economy
• Provide education in more productive agricultural methods
• Consult community leaders in design of program
• Adjust the program to changing needs
  

Never having built this before, the first attempt in Bantoli, although experimental, still proved a success. Since then, they've opened two more of these facilities in Nepal and Ghana with the intent of further expanding locations but need the financial support of those who recognize the value of such a project, which undoubtedly lives up to TPRF's mission: to address the fundamental human needs of food, water and peace so that people can live with dignity, peace and prosperity.

Thank you TPRF for your immeasurable compassion and incredible effort towards a world of peace!