Dr Shuddh Rauniyar had just finished a long day at his homeopathic clinic in Makhan Tole near Indrachowk on Bhanu Jayanti, 12 July 1999. As he left the building, his gaze fell upon three children huddled together on the sidewalk, fast asleep. A few seconds later, a fourth child joined the trio. A sudden impluse made Dr Rauniyar doctor ask the child whether he'd had dinner. He hadn't, so the good doctor nipped over to a nearby shop and bought him an egg and some bread. But the child desperately wanted daal, bhat, and tarkari.
Now here was a problem-where could one find a full Nepali meal at 10PM? As it turned out, the child, who did little other than roam the streets of old Kathmandu all day, knew a place tucked away in a hidden alley where a certain aama sold plates full of rice and all the other essentials for just Rs 5. "When I went home that night, I just couldn't sleep. The thought of these young children going to bed hungry haunted me, and there were so many of them. I thought that something had to be done," says Dr Rauniyar. The next day, he fed five other hungry street children. The day after that there were 12, and so on, until soon the Children's Food Programme-Nepal was born.
For the first few months only Dr Rauniyar was contributing to the programme, but slowly he found more ways to raise money, and enlisted more volunteers. Free meals were served at 9AM and 7PM. The word spread, and shortly over a hundred street children, or those whose parents were alive, but going through hard times, started lining up for the two free meals everyday.
Dr Rauniyar was happy, but realised that only feeding the body was not enough. So, he and his team decided they would use a carrot and stick approach that would also nurture the children's minds. They arranged informal education classes in the mornings, and told the children that attendance was compulsory if they wanted the free morning meal. This worked, but not as well as they'd hoped-the number of street children attending the morning bhojan dwindled to about 50. Still, the classes are going on. Everyday, Ambika Bista, a teacher at Bagh Bhairav Secondary School in Macchegaun, Champadevi, gives the kids an hour-long lesson at the Bal Sewa Kendra in Dhoka Tole. "These are children with an uncertain future. We may not be able to provide them with the well-rounded education that school-going children get, but at least they become literate, they have a little more knowledge," she says. The morning meal requires attendance at the classes, but the evening meal is free, and any penniless person, young or old with an empty stomach can dig right in.
The going has been hard and long for the Children's Food Programme, but it has been a success. When the mobile food distribution programme was begun Dr Rauniyar tells of how he wrote to all the major hotels in the capital, asking them to sponsor meal packets at Rs 5,000 per day. There was not one postive response. "Except for one hotel, no one had the manners to even reply to my mail, and even they didn't agree. Just think of how much food goes to waste in these places. It would've been nothing for them to sponsor a day's meals." And so the board came up with a clever idea-why not ask more privileged individuals who have something to celebrate, to spend Rs 1,000 to sponsor one meal. This found more genrous patrons and today the team runs the mobile food programme that distributes 400 packages of food every weekend.
In addition, the board of the Children's Food Programme also runs the Village School-College Students Scholarship Programme.
To support either of these initiatives, ring 274473.
