Many of us want to give back to the community that we’re living in, however, few people have the tools and motive to do so. This Indian-American couple living in the state of Texas realised the crucial need of the hour and acted on it. They summoned all their resources and tools to fight an invisible but serious, and altogether all-too-common problem that threatened permeated their community. The problem was that of hunger. Raj and Aradhana Asava have established Hunger Mitao and this is their story.
In an article recently published by The Times of India, this particular Raj Asava revealed that he was quite struck by how deep the problem of hunger and empty stomachs permeated his community, which was seemingly affluent and well-to-do.
He decided to put his years of corporate training to use and developed a model that was more than just donating money to the needy. He worked with his wife to develop Hunger Mitao, an initiative that would go on to benefit not just the Indian diaspora but also other ethnic groups as well.
The couple realised that simply donating money to charity was not going to cut it and that it was a superficial and temporary solution. They also realised that there were already organisations in place that were attempting to combat this issue. The programs launched by the North Texas Food Bank is a case in point.
They, therefore, decided that rather than starting from scratch, they could simply help the organisations already in place. Thus began Hunger Mitao, a movement launched to create awareness about the insidious problem of hunger.
Their model received a lot of attention and soon was also picked up by other ethnic communities. The Hispanic community started SinHambre which adopts the model of Hunger Mitao. NiHao is another example, started by the Chinese-American community.
Hunger Mitao provides resources, assets, contacts, etc., to such initiatives and by thus adopting the Hunger Mitao model, other communities become equipped to deal with the issue in ways best suited for it. Could there be a better real-life example of “Give a man a fish and he’ll eat for a day; teach a man fishing, and he’ll eat for a lifetime.
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