Pankaj Shah seeks no awards for his good deeds. In fact, he is always ready and willing to talk about his countless initiatives that uplift communities. And he remains laser focused on one aim – bettering the lives of Kenyans.
His network of volunteers goes by Team Pankaj. Together, they are working to ensure that food and health are not only accessible to every Kenyan but are of the highest quality possible.
Initiating a COVID response
In March 2020, Team Pankaj started making hampers for residents of low socio-economic areas of Nairobi. As corona ravaged the city and left many without a source of income, Pankaj noticed the dire need for food. His team worked to distribute an impressive 150,000 packs of food – but this was only the beginning for Team Pankaj.
By December that year, the success of the food packs led to yet another initiative. Team Pankaj collated a list of families with children living with disabilities such as hydrocephalus and cerebral palsy in underserved areas. They donated a pack of food to each family just in time for Christmas. Additionally, they oversaw the establishment of a physiotherapy clinic. The clinic sees 60 children daily completely free of charge and has been key in supporting these children to be more independent.
Recognising the vulnerability of children in times of crisis, the team set out to work with Mukuru Promotion Centre and Reuben Primary School. With 9,000 children in their sights from these schools, Team Pankaj transformed their diets to prioritise nutrition and health by implementing a school feeding programme. By February 2021, 12,000 children had benefitted from having a wholesome diet. Today, Team Pankaj serves a colossal 36,600 children and aims to ramp it up even further to 50,000 children.
The mission
Team Pankaj is committed to promoting sustainability. By working with local farmers, they are able to off-load excess vegetables. This ingenious tactic ensures that schools receive high quality, farm fresh vegetables while ensuring that farmers are supported when their goods do not sell. This is not the only way that Team Pankaj has integrated green solutions into their initiatives. They also give sugarcane bagasse briquettes to schools to replace the immense amounts of firewood they would ordinarily use.
As a result of providing healthy meals to schools, children receive at least 15 meals a week. This is a massive improvement from the 5 meals they would receive on average at home. With the lunch boxes provided as part of the programme, students can take any left-over school meals to their homes – much needed food that could feed siblings. The average mark gained by student beneficiaries of the feeding programme sitting for KCPE skyrocketed from 243 out of 500, to 328 – no doubt an indication of the positive effect of more meals.
We salute Team Pankaj for their selfless work of holding one hand at a time and create a real impact in the lives of Kenyans.
Read about how Pankaj Shah met Mother Theresa in Nairobi and began his journey of giving here. https://bit.ly/PankajShah