Mvslim
Supporting the needy in her village, a Pakistani woman has been feeding hundreds of hungry people daily at home.
The woman, Rukhsana Izhar, inspired younger Pakistanis who started Rizq, a social entrepreneur project of young Pakistanis to feed the needy, Spotlight Humanity Facebook page cited Voice of America.
Rizq was started in April 2015 by a group of friends, one of them is Izhar’s son, Huzaifa Ahmad. As step one, the Rizq team identifies an area within Lahore, usually slums and villages, and maps the community.
One their Facebookpage, the organization describes how they got started. “Every day for the past two decades, Huzaifa’s mother, opened the gates of her home at the stroke of noon, inviting all those who were hungry over for lunch. Soon the house was filled to the brim with people who didn’t have their own means to eat. Every person was family, and each member was instructed to not take more than they can eat so that no one would go back hungry.”
Rukhsana inspired her son and his friends to go further and help even more people. “Despite the efforts of Huzaifa’s mother, and people like her, hunger and poverty is rife in the Pakistani society. Being from a privileged background, Huzaifa felt at unease with the situation. Despite the huge hunger problem, people were wasting a lot of food and something needed to be done to bridge this gap. Musa and Qasim had similar concerns, being economics majors they had witnessed the hunger and poverty problem first hand during their research and field visits. And as fate would have it, these three friends would come together at LUMS and lay the foundations of “Rizq”;
Pakistan’s first food recovery and distribution service. What started as three friends going out on their cars throughout the city collecting and distributing food is now an organization operational across one of Pakistan’s largest cities – Lahore. Using what they learnt at university and the values instilled from home, these 3 envision to eradicate the waste and hunger problem of Pakistan.
On average, Rizq serves 200 to 250 meals every day, and the team aims to bring this up to 2,000 meals per day.
Sometimes, the good intention and work of one single person, can change the faith of so many people.
This article was originally published on aboutislam.net and edited by Mvslim.com
