The harbinger of hope and smiles, the Robin Hood Army (RHA) was established in August 2014 with a motto to efface hunger and wastage of food.
A volunteer-based, zero-funded organization, RHA has set up self-sustained local chapters in 217+ cities across 10 countries. Robins take time out from the daily grind of life and work on several compassionate initiatives in the service of society.
Akshat Jain, the City Representative of Chandigarh Chapter and Tech Lead (Global Operations) at RHA, provides us with an insight into the functioning and the journey of RHA Chandigarh so far. He is a Specialist Programmer at Infosys, Chandigarh.
Tell us about the journey of the Chandigarh Chapter of Robin Hood Army?
The Chandigarh Chapter of RHA was started on 13th March 2016, by covering parts of Mohali, Chandigarh and Panchkula with a handful of robins on the team. Since then, this chapter has served over 10 lakh citizens in the last five years and is now one of the Top 10 most active chapters of RHA. With a volunteer base of approx. 300 volunteers, we distribute food to more than 2000 people at 10 different locations in and around Tricity, every week.
Which programs are run by RHA-CHD currently?
We collect leftover food from restaurants, banquets, weddings, parties, and events and serve the same to the hungry citizens. One such drive runs regularly where robins distribute leftover soup from ‘Pik n Move Sec 8 Chd’ at PGIMER every night at 11 pm.
Currently, RHA Chandigarh runs two academies in Panchkula and Mohali where we not only teach kids but also get them admitted to schools and track their proper education and development.
We run various other programs including a blood support group to manage blood requirements for emergency cases, distribution of ration, clothes and blankets, monthly pad distribution, tree plantation, relief work etc.
What are your future plans and the challenges you face in your pursuit?
The only major challenge that we face is the availability of volunteers. Since each one of us does this in our free time, nobody in the team is full time dedicated to the activities.
In the future, we wish to pitch in more volunteers, restaurants and kitchens, to organize some events to publicize the same and add more locations for food distribution.
A message that you would like to give to the world out there.
Come join us and contribute to the noble cause in whatever manner you can- restaurants can give us food, people can give leftover from their celebrations, Tech. experts can assist with their expertise, content writers and digital marketing experts can help us reach out to more people, Social Media influencers can spread the word about this noble cause.
Each volunteer can give us just two hours every month!
Team RHA Chandigarh can be reached at robinhoodarmychandigarh@gmail.
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