Food for thought

"We have stolen this food from a hungry family", he said, as he walked around the classroom with a plate heaped with left-over's. Faces of the students began to turn in disgust, as the strong smell and messy pile of wasted food was taken in front of each seat. Just moments before entering the classroom, the same person had rolled his sleeves up and started collecting the wasted food deposited in large plastic box used for finished plates. Whilst wiping each of the 40 plus students' remnants onto one large dish, bewildered catering staff tried to stop him from this insane act. Several students who were passing by on route to class were equally shocked to see this formally dressed Westerner getting his hands dirty in 'waste'.

I thought the creative sign I put up in the dining hall would stop the wastage. I thought the polite warning in class would work. And still, there was food being thrown away. Having read up on Indian development, I became aware that some 400,000,000 Indians are living below the poverty line, i.e. they do not have enough food to eat or other basic needs met. Given the relative economic hardship of the students concerned, I figured they would understand - yet they did not.

Out of my desperation to communicate this message, I decided to roll my sleeves up and take action.

In subsequent days, the students did dramatically reduce the amount of wasted food. How long into the future they will continue – I don't know. I came here to be part of a project that not only secured employment for economically disadvantaged graduates, but transformed them into role model citizens. Value-based education is required for these degree holders to turn them into employable meaningful Graduates.

It was through the desire to create community that resulted in the above crazy act. I did not plan to do such a thing; however, it was all that came to mind and that to coming from a space of family rather than anger or disrespect. I genuinely wanted each individual to feel responsible and accountable for each other, from which they could develop a sense moral responsibility for the wider people of this nation. The search continues to understand how we can create this sense of oneness amongst our people – after all, "The difference between what we do and what we are capable of doing would suffice to solve most of the world's problems" - it just requires us, all of us, to actual want to bring about change.