If you’re wandering about at night and chance upon green garbed beings helping homeless persons enjoy a full meal, don’t search frantically for a UFO, they aren’t aliens but co-humans aka Robins of the Robin Hood Army. Co-founded by Neel Ghose and Anand Sinha in August 2014 with a vision to eliminate hunger and food wastage globally, RHA has expanded its view from six volunteers in one city to over 7,500 volunteers across 30 cities and 12 countries in two short years. The volunteer based organisation works to get surplus food from restaurants to the less fortunate sections of our society. We speak over mugs of Hot Chocolate & marshmallows with Akshay Mahajan, Strategy and Operations consultant by day and RHA’s CTO and volunteer by night.
Volunteering since May 2015, Akshay has since then also taken up the role of Chief Technology Officer at RHA. Talking about his journey with this soul warming initiative he says, “RHA encourages people to take as much responsibility as they can. We are an extremely decentralised organisation without any formal hierarchy in place. In my year and a half here we’ve fed well over a million people, yet it’s only 1% of what we want to achieve.” Coordinating the huge bank of volunteers through chat forums such as WhatsApp, and maintaining an automated online response system to queries & requests, this team of motivated do-gooders functions seamlessly without any noticeable hiccups.
Started by a group of young professionals who were driven to give back to the society, the army of Robins has since then come to comprise college students, home makers, business persons, retired persons, and even school children. “Anyone can become a Robin! All we need from you is your time and dedication,” Akshay shares. Gathering momentum, RHA has recently ventured into setting up college chapters all over the world, they’re looking at mobilising youth across campuses and helping them become self-governed leaderships, which will be transferred to subsequent batches. They’ve already successfully created eight such chapters in Indian universities till now, including Delhi University and Jamia Millia Islamia.
It’s not just RHA’s volunteer sector that’s expanding, with restaurants such as CAARA Café and Four Points by Sheraton on board, their list of participant restaurants is also growing by the day. “While there used to be some teething issues when starting off in a new city, these are fading over time thanks to social media awareness and the gradual shift in restaurant owners’ thinking,” Akshay shares. From the organisation asking restaurants to donate any extra food to few of them sticking a chord with the concept and cooking for RHA free of cost on a weekly basis, they’ve certainly come a long way. Deploying food at such a mass level raises the question of quality standards too, speaking on the same Akshay informs that it has been a prime concern for them since day one, “RHA only accepts freshly cooked food, sometimes the Robins themselves taste it to ensure that it’s not stale. We also ensure that no food is left kept sitting, is taken to the distribution point and consumed at the earliest.”
On what keeps this organisation ticking despite not having a usual corporate structure, Akshay says it’s a four point formula that’s helped RHA in its fight against hunger, “The key things that I believe work in our favour are the fact that it does not require any substantial extra effort from the restaurant’s end. Secondly, the Robins do it in their free time because they wish to & not for any monetary compensation. Thirdly, we do not accept any monetary donations which helps keep our passion at the core. And lastly, the amazing Robins who go beyond themselves to help and even volunteer to pick up and distribute food in the middle of a chilly Delhi December night.”
Happily convinced by now that kindness still exists in this world, we ask him what goes into a typical volunteering night with RHA, “Right now most of our drives are on Sundays and each chapter (Delhi is divided into nine sub-chapters) caters to a few hundred people. We give each volunteer a chance to own the drive by following a roster system, some will scout for the location, few will collect & bring the food to the site, and once there a third team will take charge of crowd management.” If that wasn’t enough, they also go the extra mile with their ‘Paint the City Green’ drive, where the Robins approach all the restaurants in the city to inform them about RHA and its mission.
The green is not only on their shirts, but in their minds & hearts too. While doing their bit for the society, they haven’t forgotten to do the same for our environment, “In order to be as green as possible we try not to have food individually packed, and in most cases borrow the cooking vessel from the restaurant itself for the drive. At the site, we request people to bring their own utensils however, we do keep paper plates handy in case someone doesn’t have any utensil at the time.”
With restaurants and caterers by their side, RHA is also finding a stronghold for their Food Bank, where individuals can contribute by cooking lunch for a few extra people every Sunday. Cook, pack, and the rest will be taken care of by these real life Robins. With the wedding and party season RHA is gearing up for its blanket distribution drive and looks to spread warmth & love among a larger number of less fortunate people this winter.
We can already feel the warmth off the good-hearted peeps, who’ve powered through to become the latest entry to the DSSc bestie list! As we fish the last of the marshmallows from our mugs, Akshay assures the non-existence of UFOs and signs off with, “The next time you see a bunch of energetic folks on the road wearing green tees and carrying food, join us or just stop by and say Hi!”
