Since the outbreak of the armed conflict in Ukraine, Krishna devotees have already distributed 20,000 hot meals to refugees, while also providing for the needy at home. They are also providing full meals in their shelters.
The first month of shock
The first arrivals were met at railway stations and along the border. The Meals for Life Foundation, a humanitarian organisation of Krishna devotees, helped feed Indian students fleeing Ukraine in the first week of the crisis, providing more than 6,000 meals to over-famished and exhausted students.
At the same time, on the Hungarian side of the border crossings, warm meals and fresh fruit were distributed to support those crossing the border, especially mothers, elderly people and children. In the following weeks of the crisis, food distributions were organised at railway stations and lunch and food were delivered to refugee shelters, cooking an additional 600 meals a day for the people in need. Meanwhile, in Transcarpathia and the central part of Ukraine, the astronomical food prices and shortages of raw materials and fuel were also being faced. In cooperation with the Ukrainian partner organisation of Meals for Life (Pishcha Zhizni), 12 tonnes of durable food aid materials have been delivered across the border and further relief operations are underway. Local volunteers are helping people stranded in shelters, bunkers and metro underpasses with cooked food from the materials they have received.
Retreat in Krishna Valley
In the meantime, Krishna Valley has also become a place of refuge, with 150 refugees so far having turned up at the Hungarian Krishna centres, most of them Vaishnava believers themselves. They are provided with full care, including accommodation, food and clothing, medical and psychological support due to exhaustion and trauma, and education for children. In view of the uncertain outcome of the protracted crisis, long-term assistance is being provided in Krishna Valley and in the food distribution kitchens, for which donations and support from the public are welcome, as are pledges of 2×1% of tax, which provide stable and predictable support to the charity programme.
We don't have to go far, there are many people in need in Hungary too
But it's not just refugees who need help. Skyrocketing food prices due to the protracted war in the neighbouring country are also keeping otherwise middle-income families at bay, and at the end of the month, families with many children increasingly need outside help. And pensioners and the unemployed are left completely vulnerable, especially if they live alone in a household.
In addition to helping refugees, Meals for Life is specifically focused on providing ongoing assistance to the local population and maintaining its food distribution programme in the capital and in rural areas. As a result, they provide 2,000 meals a day (half a million bowls a year). The hot lunch is accompanied by fresh bakery products, vegetables, fruit, yoghurt and complementary products from the food rescue, taking a significant burden off the shoulders of families. Under the „Like a loaf of bread” programme, food distributions are organised in small rural villages on a monthly basis for 150-600 people, where fewer NGOs are active, even though hundreds of thousands of people live below the minimum subsistence level.