How it began
A teacher's answer to a hungry lockdown
When COVID shut India's doors, Anushree Kharbanda saw two kinds of hunger up close. Seniors living alone were locked inside with no one to cook for them or bring them groceries. On the streets, daily earners lost the work that put food on their plates.
After nearly three decades in the classroom, she knew how to organise people and how to look after them. She began cooking and delivering meals, one home and one street corner at a time. Neighbours, former students and friends joined in. That effort became Meal in Need.
The lockdown ended. Hunger did not. So the kitchen stayed open.
Today the initiative asks one simple thing of all of us: the next time life gives you a reason to celebrate, share that joy with someone who has nobody to celebrate with.