HYDERABAD: While Hyderabad sleeps after grand weddings and lavish celebrations, a different kind of journey unfolds on its streets. Armed with packets of rescued food and driven by compassion, a group of young volunteers rides through the night in search of people who might otherwise go to bed hungry.
At the heart of this movement is Nemani Malleshwar Rao, founder of the volunteer-driven initiative Don’t Waste Food. Speaking to TNIE, he says that this initiative is close to his heart as his own childhood was shaped by hunger, poverty and child labour.
Every night, volunteers collect surplus food from weddings, hotels and corporate events, pack it into containers and set out on motorcycles across the city. They distribute meals to people sleeping on pavements, near railway stations, bus stops, under flyovers and even to attendants at hospitals.
Since its inception in 2012, Don’t Waste Food has grown into one of the country’s largest food rescue movements. The organisation has distributed more than 32 lakh meals in the last three years alone. During peak wedding and festival seasons, volunteers serve over 5,000 meals a day. What began in Hyderabad has now expanded to Delhi, Rohtak, Rajahmundry and Jamshedpur, collectively distributing around 2,000 meals daily.
Malleshwar’s journey began far from Hyderabad. In 1998, floods destroyed his family’s small farm near Nagpur, forcing them to migrate to Nizamabad in search of work. Childhood quickly gave way to survival. “Finding food for the next meal was often our biggest challenge,” he recalls.
While other children attended school, he worked at construction sites, cleaned lorries and washed dishes at roadside eateries to support his family. His life changed when a social worker spotted him at a construction site and brought him to Samskar Ashram, where he received an education and a stable environment. “That is where I learnt the value of giving back,” he adds.
Determined to build a better future, Malleshwar later moved to Hyderabad to pursue engineering. To pay his fees and support his family, he worked nights at catering events while attending classes during the day. In 2012, after a wedding function, he watched large quantities of untouched food being dumped into garbage bins. The sight immediately brought back memories of his own hunger.
“I couldn’t stop thinking about how many people could have been fed with that food,” he says.
That night, he and a few friends collected the leftover food and distributed it among people living on the streets. Near Secunderabad Railway Station, he handed a food packet to a hungry man and noticed a smile of relief on his face.
“I saw my own reflection in him,” Malleshwar recalls. “That moment convinced me this work had to continue.”
The organisation’s work has expanded beyond food distribution. Volunteers conduct blood donation drives, run educational programmes for children from underserved communities, organise blanket distribution campaigns and assist during emergencies and natural disasters.
The initiative has also earned national recognition. Its work has been appreciated by industrialist Anand Mahindra and featured in Prime Minister Narendra Modi’s Mann Ki Baat.