All About Food
Whilst
we believe that education is the main route out of poverty
we also understand that children need to be strong and
healthy to develop and concentrate and to make the most of
any educational opportunities we can provide. We therefore
ensure that the Mango House has the means to provide
nutritious meals Monday to Friday for around 100 children.
Cooking and distributing meals for so many children
is a pretty big task. Action starts early in the day
with a visit to the market to buy whatever is
necessary for the day’s menu. Generally speaking on
Monday either fish fry or fish curry is provided, on
Tuesdays and Thursdays vegetarian curry, on
Wednesday chicken curry and egg curry on a Friday.
All meals are accompanied by rice and seasonal fruit
is given on a daily basis.
Anyone
who has cooked a curry from scratch will know it is
quite a time consuming business with many
ingredients. Nothing is ready made so Saroj the
Mango House cook and her assistant Sarojini start
preparing for the day’s cooking as soon as they
arrive and cook kilos of rice and curries in huge
pots. By the time the teaching staff return from
their outreach work huge it’s time to lift the pots
into the main hall where all staff lend a hand to
put the rice and curry into individual pots – small
ones for the pre-primary children and larger pots
for the school going ones. The pots are loaded into
the van and then after an early lunch break the food
is delivered to two main slums where children we
help living in the slum or in rooms in the locality
queue patiently to receive their meals.
On
arrival at the slum each child will be clutching
yesterday’s washed food pots. As you might imagine
in reality all food pots are washed again at Mango
House but it is important that children understand
the need to keep things clean. The older children
love to get involved in giving the food out whilst
Ali our House Father ticks off children who have
attended school that day and will therefore be given
a meal and fruit. Siblings come equipped with an
array of bags suitable for taking all their
brothers’ and sisters’ pots. Food is usually taken
home to eat though some children take it with them
to afternoon sessions. At the end of the afternoon
around 200 “clean” pots are washed, dried and
stacked ready to start again the next day.
Click
here
to see the daily food activities in photos |