Nonprofits work to fill in gap to provide food to migrants

An ambitious plan for the 69-acre Regent Park neighborhood is disrupting entrenched notions of class, race and religion, at a time when concerns over income inequality and immigration are growing.

A nonprofit organization, the Internationals Network for Public Schools, delivers a first-class education to the children of illegal immigrants, helping to break the cycle of poverty and provide them a path to advance in life.

Many young Latina women live their lives in fear of gang violence. The Montgomery County Street Outreach Network rescues girls in danger and offers services to them in order to help them change their chances of success.

In a rapidly gentrifying Mexico City neighborhood, two artists refurbished an icon and set up an altar for Santa Mari La Juaricua, a saint to protect residents from eviction. The saint raises awareness and acts as a reminder about housing issues and the icon has been taken up by the residents and has been used in processions and protests.

Pomegranate Kitchen in Wellington, New Zealand employees refugee women from around the world. The kitchen, which operates collaboratively rather than in a hierarchy, encourages these chefs to grow their cooking and managerial strengths as well as overcome cultural boundaries in order to become financially independent.

As the novel coronavirus outbreak continues to spread, the San Antonio Food Bank is working with other organizations to get more food out into the community. Although volunteer turnout has decreased, the Texas food bank has partnered with groups like Pre-K 4 SA to hand out food to students and their families. Every day, the food bank says it is sending $500,000 worth of food into the community.

The Women’s Collective is a nonprofit that works with more than 10,000 subsistence farmers in the Indian state of Tamil Nadu to promote food security using millets, a crop resilient to drought and climate change. For Pavitra, one of those farmers, she began cultivating the ancient grains in 2015 and now has more than enough food to feed her family year-round. However, there’s a lack of public investment in millet production and machinery. And there’s no unified effort to create demand for millets: Some state governments lead the charge and in other states, it’s led by grassroots organizations.

The Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) provides basic necessities, hot showers, English classes, and social interaction for refugees in Greece. JRS also opened a Women Day Centre which catered specifically to the needs of refugee women, providing them with health care, clothing, showers, and haircuts.

A New York-based nonprofit called Students for a Free Tibet is training Tibetans in "how to stage nonviolent protests." This effort, in conjunction with other Tibetan NGOs, has helped activists in Dharamsala, India to become "more organized, media savvy and technologically sophisticated," which in turn has increased the number of people who have come together to participate in the nonviolent protests.

Want to help fight food insecurity? There’s an app for that. Food Rescue Hero helps connect extra food with those who need it. Volunteers use the app to see if any food is available and when it is, they pickup and deliver the donation to a pre-approved recipient, all through the app.