Staff Reporter –
To observe World Hunger Day, Malabar Group, the world’s sixth-largest jewellery group, distributed food packets in different parts of Kolkata under ‘Hunger-Free World’, the CSR programme of Malabar Group to provide nutritious daily meals to the needy across the country. Under ‘Hunger-Free World’ Project, Malabar Gold and Diamonds Store, Camac Street and Malabar Gold and Diamonds Store, Kankurgachi distributed meals in the city to support the needy.
The “Hunger-Free World” project, aligned with the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goal 2 – Zero Hunger, is a path-breaking initiative of Malabar Group dedicated to providing daily meals to the needy and contributing to the global fight against hunger.
The Hunger-Free World programme is executed with the help of the highly recognised social welfare NGO `Thanal – Daya Rehabilitation Trust.’ Modern kitchens have been set up in different places to prepare nutritious food in a hygienic environment by skilled chefs. The volunteers of Malabar Group and Thanal identify the needy people in the streets and urban suburbs and bring the food packets to their doorsteps.
Malabar Group also announced to expand its ‘Hunger-Free World’ programme and unveil its ambitious annual distribution plan to provide 51,000 nutritious meals per day, for the fiscal year 2024–25 to cover more people and cities in the country. The Group plans to increase and now distribute around 3500 food packets in different parts of Kolkata, total 5700 food packets in the East Region, including West Bengal, Odisha and Jharkhand and aims to expand to more cities.
Commenting on the company’s success, MP Ahammed, Chairman, of Malabar Group, said, “At present the programme is implemented in 37 cities including Kolkata spread across 16 states including Union Territories, apart from a few centres in the Gulf countries. As part of the expansion, the programme will now cover 70 cities in 16 States. Besides, the Group also plans to launch the same programme for school children in the African nation Zambia. Currently, as many as 31,000 food packets are distributed under the ambitious programme. As part of scaling up, 51,000 nutritious food packets will now be distributed. There are still plenty of people around us who are struggling to secure at least one square meal a day. We launched this programme as a small hand of help to those governments and agencies working hard to eliminate hunger from our world.”
The NGO volunteers are also surveying the beneficiaries to assess the social and economic causes of hunger. As part of this programme, the Malabar Group in association with Thanal, has already started the `Grandma Home’ project to identify poor and orphaned elderly women and provide them with free food, accommodation and other health care. Two such `Grandma Homes’ have been setup in Bengaluru and Hyderabad. Plans are afoot to set up similar homes in Chennai, Kolkata, Delhi, Mumbai and a few select cities in Kerala. This will provide an opportunity for neglected and orphaned women to live with dignity. The Group has also launched a micro-learning programme to support the primary education of street children. Apart from this, the Malabar Group is also active in other social welfare and charitable activities like financial assistance for medical care, education support to female students, and partial support for house construction. The Group earmarks five percent of the profits from its verticals, including Malabar Gold & Diamonds, as a CSR fund for social welfare activities. The Group has already spent Rs246crore for such social welfare programmes.
