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| Children enjoying food at dining area |
“Chalo ji Roti Khane” usually this is how our mothers or even we ask our family, friends, relatives to join us for food.
Roti is considered a complete meal. Every Indian meal is served with roti & rice as staple food. In rural India towards the Northern regions rotis or bhakris made of wheat, bajara or jowar are included in all the three times meal.
VSSM’s Vatsalya Hostel Nomadic Children are from farther most regions of North Gujarat, they have been grown until now with the habitat of having rotis in their all meals. Unlike us or our town side kids, they have choices to make from the variety of cuisine served in breakfast, lunch, dinner.
Our tiny toes had wandered till now, asking for rotis door to door, lets make these rotis a unlimited joy, they cheer while going to school, fulfils them in lunch when they return from school & satisfies their hunger in dinner.
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| Roti making machine donated by Mahesh & Maheshwari Desai Foundation INC. in memory of their late mother Smt. Nirmalaben Desai |
Initially we could not measure the quantity of wheat flour may require per meal, cooks in our hostel were gruelling for making rotis sufficient for 300 + children. These children have a very robust appetite. Most of them have never experienced so much food security. They do not like anything else other than roti and bhakhari. Every meal required making rotis from 70 kg flour just for 180 children. In just 2 months 6 cooks left the job here. Since the kids did not like aloo-poha, upma or anything else, the cooks were required to get up at 3.45 in the morning and begin with marathon roti making sessions.
Expecting the children to help with these tasks is also inappropriate as they have morning school and need to leave the campus by 6.45 in the morning. These tiring 3 sessions had gradually made cooks to run away. Roti Making machine was the sole tool to minimise the endless efforts and improve the efficiency of cooks. Hence we decided to invest in a machine that rolls and roasts the rotis. This way we have reduced our manpower dependency for rolling rotis as it was the single most challenging task for the cooks.
Today it is like wonder in the kitchen, the first day trial of machine was memorable to our children, their excitement & pleasure watching these round rotis automatically swifting from the pitballs and turning hot puffed ready to eat in seconds!!
Our dining area now whilst with stories, laughter and satisfaction. Thanks to our valuable donor Mahesh & Maheshwari Desai Foundation INC. they donated the machine in profound memory of their late mother Smt. Nirmalaben Desai. We are grateful to Dr. Maheshji to understand our requirement and helped us in atomizing the structure.
Our dinning place is must see place in our hostel, the grown up children now act as volunteers, before entering everybody has to remove shoes, everyone must sit on the floor as equals, so all people are on the same level and nobody is ‘above’ anyone else, prayers are performed before they start, plates spoons & bowls are served & then the food is served, volunteers makes sure that children don’t waste food & after they finish they walk in que & after dining, plates and utensils are handed to washing area, they are washed in large communal areas and plates are then stacked for the next round of meal.
Roti Making Machine donated by Mahesh & Maheshwari Desai Foundation INC. in memory of their late mother Smt. Nirmalaben Desai
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