Hungry for change, they fight for right to food

NEW DELHI: For a long time, Aditya Rawat (15) wasn’t happy with the midday meal his school fed him. Then he saw midday meal being thrown away due to poor quality at an anganwadi in his colony. That’s when this Class X student of a south Delhi government school decided to do something about it.
On August 14, Rawat and 30 other students from colonies around Tughlaqabad teamed up to start a campaign against malnutrition.It started off in south Delhi but then it reached Seemapuri in east Delhi where again local students ran this campaign.
“If we don’t speak up for our rights, who will? We want the government to improve the quality of food given in anganwadis and schools. We also want midday meal scheme to be extended to students up to Class XII, said Rawat who studies at Government Boys’ Senior Secondary School (GBSSS), Railway Colony.
Every Saturday and Sunday, these students devote up to three hours going around the colony raising awareness. An NGO named Matri Sudha mentors them. And a Class XII student named Aakash Singh (17) said they have also met the local MLA, Sahi Ram, and MP Ramesh Bidhuri for support.
“We are also running a signature campaign for which we have collected almost 20,000 signatures so far. We will submit these to education minister Manish Sisodia,” Singh said, adding that he took a malnourished child of his colony to a dispensary.
Sahiba Seth, a Class X student from Dilshad Garden, spends an hour daily to spread awareness.
“In today’s world, no one should die of hunger or fall sick without nutritious food,” she said. Seth’s team has seven other people.
Elsewhere in west Delhi’s Valmiki Camp, Reena Banksar (11) and her niece Preeti (9) are busy learning and spreading that learning among smaller children in their colony who can’t go to playschools.
After her school gets over, Banksar rushes to a tuition centre run by an NGO. The Class VI student was until a few years ago unable to go to school as her father, a mason, was unwilling to send her to a far away school. The NGO intervened on her behalf and her father agreed. Now, she teaches other children. And she still finds time for them despite her own regular study routine and homework load.
Banksar teaches 20 children the English alphabets and numerals. And Preeti helps her in that.