Recently, individuals in India and Pakistan came together to form one united group, the Robin Hood Army (RHA), in order to fight hunger in their respective countries.
According to Al Jazeera, Neel Ghose started the group in 2014 to fight hunger in New Delhi. He shared his idea with Sarah Afridi, a friend in Pakistan, and she formed her own chapter of the group.
According to a study done by the Food and Agriculture Organization, a third of the world’s annual food production goes to waste, which equals up to 1.3bn tons. This could feed up to 7.3 billion of the world’s population, which could drastically reduce world hunger.
In Pakistan six of every ten people are affected by food scarcity. A shocking 60 percent of people total in the country do not have access to the nutrition they need to lead healthy lives. Since India also suffers from a major hunger crisis, both countries are in dire need of the type of relief the RHA is attempting to provide.
Every Sunday, groups of youths involved in the organization go out and collect food from donation centers, then distribute it to the poor in order to help feed those who don’t have enough to eat.
“We take this food to those who are not sure where their next meal is going to come from,” stated Anaam Afridi, a Pakistani member of RHA, in an interview with Al Jazeera.
The slogan for the organization, “we might be on different teams but we are batting for the same side,” shows how the RHA strives to bridge the gap between India and Pakistan, and help improve peace and communication.
Currently, the Army works in 23 different cities and five different countries – Pakistan, India, Bangladesh, and Indonesia. The group has over 3,000 members, and has served over 500,000 people.
Organizations like this are key to helping improve relations between countries where religion and nationality cause prejudice, as well as for feeding those who are living below the poverty line.
