Rizq comprises a group of people from the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) who want to play their part in ridding Pakistan of the nuisances of hunger and malnutrition. They do this by collecting surplus food from restaurants/caterers/households and providing it to the needy. Hiba got in touch with them to find out more about their work.
What is the vision behind Rizq project?
According to current statistics, around 40% of all food produced is wasted, whereas approximately 40% of the Pakistani population is food insecure. The vision behind Rizq is to bridge this gap by channelling excess food without producing extra food. As economics majors, we are always told about the scarcity of resources, but in this case what we have realized that it is not the scarcity of food, but the lack of channelling – and this is where Rizq comes in.
What do you mean by ‘without producing extra food’?
A lot of food that is produced is wasted as it goes along various stages in the food supply chain. This is an efficiency loss. On the other hand, there are a lot of people who sleep on empty stomach. So, there’re two ways to feed the hunger-stricken; either through freshly-made food or using the perfectly edible food which gets lost along the supply chain due to efficiency loss. Rizq is focusing on the later approach as it kills two birds with one stone.
Who was your inspiration to launch this project?
The inspiration is our mother – she is the mother of one of the co-founders, but in broader sense, she is a mentor for all of us. You can read her inspirational story here:
http://www.mangobaaz.com/she-is-feeding-homeless-pakistanis/
It would be interesting to know more about your actual operations.
We get food from buffet restaurants, wedding halls, events, etc. Recently, we have partnered with various community centres working in squatter slums across Lahore. One such example is Pakistan Development Exchange (PDX), with whom we have collaborated, so our food is collected from various restaurants and kept at these designated centres from where it is later distributed to people and communities.
How do you distribute food?
Our target audience is the beneficiaries of these community centres. We initially started off with the people on the roads who seemed to be poor. But that was a flawed strategy because there was no mechanism to verify them and secondly we couldn’t gauge the long-term impact of our intervention on the lives of people we helped. So, these community centres that we have collaborated with have data of verified people in need of assistance. Later on, these people then become part of our food security programme.
How many people are involved in Rizq operation? Are they all volunteers or paid workers?
We are three co-founders and have a volunteer team of around 15-20 people. However, now we have also got a paid worker, who is our RizqShaw driver.
How does Rizq generate funds?
For the past year, we have been generating funds through friends and family; however, now we are trying to move towards sustainability to cover the operational expenses and looking for funding for expansion purposes.
What are some of the challenges that Rizq faces?
To provide food to the utmost deserving people – that is the challenge we face in every operation, and we call it our Rizq rescue mission.
How has the response been?
The response has been overwhelming to say the least. With the phenomenal support we have gotten our operations have started off in Islamabad and will be expanding to other cities soon.
What are your future goals? Do you aspire to expand in the future?
We are currently based in Lahore only, and, yes, we hope to expand in the whole country, making channelling of excess food as easy and convenient as possible. We also aim to introduce an extensive school lunch programme to the government and low end primary schools. This programme already is in the pilot phase, with the Rizq kitchen providing healthy and nutritious food at subsidized rates. Another major goal is providing the easiest, convenient, and transparent food distribution channel!
Any message for our readers?
The message is really simple: Don’t waste. Share Food. Feed Happiness.
Team Rizq can be contacted at:
0322-88242089
0321-7967979
0321-8406523
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