Food for Life (FFL) is the world largest vegetarian food relief program. Inaugurated in 1974 Food for Life today is active in over 60 countries. It was Srila Prabhupada’s injunction that no one within 10 miles of a temple should go hungry.
FFL is a non-profit organization, bringing food to the needy of the world through liberal distribution of pure vegetarian food prepared with love. The food prepared is then offered to Krishna and honored as prasadam, sanctified food. Thus the food distributed not only nourishes the body but the soul.
In Gauteng Food for Life is an integral part of most of our programs and thousands of plates of are distributed monthly to needy individuals, and benefitting them in terms of health and spiritually.
You can make a difference by contributing your time to participate in this program. Contact your nearest ISKCON centre to find out more !
According to the World Health Organization (WHO), more than one billion people in the world live in poverty today. Jeremy Rifkin, author of Beyond Beef: The Rise and Fall of the Cattle Industry, comments:
Increased poverty has meant increased malnutrition. On the African continent, nearly one in every four human beings is malnourished. In Latin America, nearly one out of every eight people goes to bed hungry each night. In Asia and the Pacific, 28 percent of the people border on starvation, experiencing the gnawing pain of perpetual hunger. In the Near East, one in ten people are underfed.
The World Food Programme (WFP) reports:
“There are 1.02 billion undernourished people in the world today. That means one in nearly six people do not get enough food to be healthy and lead an active life. Hunger and malnutrition are in fact the number one risk to the health worldwide – greater than AIDS, malaria and tuberculosis combined.
Among the key causes of hunger are natural disasters, conflict, poverty, poor agricultural infrastructure and over-exploitation of the environment.Recently, financial and economic crises have pushed more people into hunger. As well as the obvious sort of hunger resulting from an empty stomach, there is also the hidden hunger of micronutrient deficiencies which make people susceptible to infectious diseases, impair physical and mental development, reduce their labour productivity and increase the risk of premature death.”