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Charity champion Michelle Bailey is working on developing a food app that will help cut back on wastage and could deliver fresh fare and left overs to those in need in under an hour.
The Feed the Need co-founder has teamed up with your campaigning community newspaper to help raise awareness about initiatives to help poorly-paid expat labourers and local families facing difficulties, as part of the GulfWeekly Ramadan Appeal 2018.
Michelle and her husband, Riyaz Jivanjee, and their children, Layla, 10, and Adam, three, along with a group of big-hearted volunteers, have been supporting the less fortunate for the past five years by setting up fridges around the kingdom to store donated food.
The plan now is to create a smart phone application to make pick-ups and drop-offs quicker and easier. Michelle said: “If people were able to simply request a pick up my driver would be able to know where to collect the fresh food or leftovers and drop it off to a central point within 60 minutes or less, I’m sure.”
“There are a few that are running successfully in other parts of the world so we know it could work here.”
But one step at a time. As highlighted earlier in GulfWeekly, the next stage will be to set up a Food Bank, which could act as a collection point for dry goods that are donated, usually because they have a short shelf life. It would be a centre for all charities and people working with the poor and disadvantaged to take advantage of.
Michelle said: “Roughly one third of the food produced in the world for human consumption every year - approximately 1.3 billion tonnes - gets lost or wasted.
“Food losses and waste amounts to roughly $680 billion in industrialised countries and $310 billion in developing countries each year. In Bahrain it is estimated that we waste 500 tonnes of food daily which rises to 600 tonnes per day during Ramadan.
“There are families going hungry each and every day here in Bahrain. With thousands of tonnes of healthy food being thrown away, there is an imbalance we can correct.
“Furthermore, the benefit is not just feeding those in need, it is also enriching the lives of the rest of us by the gift we give ourselves when we help others, educating our children and getting the whole country working as one holistic ecosystem.
“I think this is a barometer of the actual health of our society, using digital interconnectedness to sustain the whole community. I have more than 200 suppliers to supermarkets that said they will donate their close-to-end shelf life items to us. That’s crates of items still safe to eat.
“This is why we need a central warehouse for all of the charities. We could also work with the mosques and the churches that have lists of families in need so that we could quietly and discreetly help them on a regular basis.”
Michelle believes that what will make the Food Bank suggestion a reality is a decision by Bahrain businesses and government to make it a priority. “A warehouse premises, a refrigerated van and enthusiastic staff - that’s it,” believes Michelle. “The model is successful in many other countries, with the UAE starting a Food Bank last year, and we know as a region, the GCC believes it to be a valuable idea.”
Michelle is also planning to hold a food drive after summer and is currently running a ‘biryani drive’ all the way up to Eid. She said: “People can donate to provide hot meals. We have two restaurants that offer us 50 hot meals for BD35 so this is a good deal and it means 100 per cent of what is donated goes to those in need.”
For more details contact Michelle on 39627883 or visit www.feedtheneedbahrain.com
