International Literacy Day 2023 – There are very few persons in the world who find enormous satisfaction in serving others, putting others’ needs ahead of their own without regard for their own. These people are a minority of the population, yet they exist, which may be one of the reasons why the world is still a great place to live. Samita Halder is one such lady who is well-known for her deeds of generosity and humanity.
Home Chef Samita, based in Gurugram, is aiming to disseminate the light of education to poor youngsters, particularly school dropouts. She not only enrolls these children in school, but also supervises their progress on a regular basis to ensure that their parents do not quit their education and force them into child labor. How did her adventure begin?
Samita, who holds a master’s degree in English and a bachelor’s degree in education, has lived in Gurugram for the past nine years. Her husband is a consultant and an electrical engineer.
Samita, who enjoys cooking, began providing free home-cooked meals during the 2020 national lockdown. Simple dishes with few flavors, such as steaming rice, daal, mashed potatoes, mixed vegetable and egg curries, would be included.
International Literacy Day 2023
Samita began making simple yet nutritious meals and delivering them via food delivery apps at the request of her friends who were battling Covid-19. She sometimes went out by herself to deliver the food.
Samita gradually began supplying food to key workers such as nurses and other hospital personnel. Word of mouth quickly spread, and more people began calling her for home-cooked meals, but she never charged them a single rupee.
“My husband has been very supportive,” Samita Halder told The CSR Journal. When people began clamoring for food, he instructed me not to accept any form of money. People who had been taking meals for a while began bringing me money and demanding that I use the same.
Samita, a mother of a 20-year-old, is now a successful home chef who is well-known throughout Delhi and the National Capital Region for her delectable Bengali cuisine. She has her own website, publishes delicious recipes on social media, and regularly teaches cooking lessons.
Samita, a resident of Ashok Nagar in West Bengal’s North 24 Parganas region, specializes on traditional Bengali and Bangladeshi dishes, including vegetarian options that many people outside Bengal are unaware of.
These include items like Tel ilish (Hilsa curry), Panta Bhaat (rice soaked and fermented in water mixed with mustard oil, chopped onions, green chilli and salt) served in earthen handi, Mochar Ghonto (Banana blossom sabzi), Ghugni (chickpeas curry), kochur shaak (colocasia leaf sabzi), Kochur Loti (Taro root sabzi), Shaplar Bhela Bhaja (batter fried water lily stem), Kakroler Pur Bhora (stuffed spiny gourd) and Bengali sweets which have been forgotten over time. Many things are in high demand among consumers in Delhi and the NCR.
Samita also works with impoverished children in and around Gurugram. She is involved with non-profit organizations such as the Robin Hood Academy and the We Care Foundation.
She enrolls children from disadvantaged circumstances, including as migrant laborers, abandoned and street children, in government and nonprofit schools, particularly those for school dropouts. She also buys these children’s school outfits and stationery.
“The process is not easy because most of these children do not have a birth certificate or any valid documents without which government schools or any other schools do not enrol students,” she explained. I also constantly monitor these children’s academic development to ensure that their parents do not take them out of school and force them to work as children, which is a common occurrence.”
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