‘Being a part of Sikh Volunteers Australia is like breathing to me,’ says the organisation’s co-founder and secretary Jaswinder Singh. Photograph: Christopher Hopkins/The Guardian
By Mostafa Rachwani | Australia |
With the promise of “free food” plastered in large print, Sikh Volunteers Australia vans have become a familiar sight in times of crisis, providing healthy vegetarian meals to people in need, from bushfire victims to the homeless.
So when Victoria was plunged into its sixth Covid lockdown at the start of August, the organisation ramped up its operation, beginning what would become its biggest relief effort yet.
Volunteer Simranjit Singh says the organisation cooked, packed and delivered nearly 80,000 free vegetarian meals in 81 days.
“Every day, around 800-plus meals were going out to people, so you could say that more than 800 people were in need during lockdown every single day,” he says. The volunteer responds to requests for help as well as cooking and delivering meals.
“The phone calls were always coming. Lots of people really needed the service, or they literally would go hungry.”
“It was challenging work,” says volunteer Kamaldeep Singh. “It’s not a small task, but with the help of the volunteers and their selfless service, we were able to make it a success.”
Kamaldeep Singh’s role involves answering calls from people in need.
“A pregnant lady called me the other day, crying, saying she didn’t have any food, she couldn’t cook and had tested positive [for Covid] so couldn’t leave. What could she do? We had to help her.
“There are a number of situations like that: people in difficult situations, single mothers, international students, the elderly, the people that were most affected by the lockdown.”
Read the full story, ‘‘I do all this for my inner peace’: the Sikh volunteers feeding Melbourne (The Guardian, 30 Oct 2021), here.
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