By Jessy Joseph

New Delhi, June 2, 2020: A Christian NGO has moved to the eastern Indian state of Jharkhand, after serving lockdown victims in the National Capital Region.

“Most of our benefactors are in Jharkhand and when the lockdown started our school children were denied one time meal a day,” said Father Siby Eravimangalam, the state coordinator of the Board for Research Education and Development (BREAD).

The group went to Jharkhand after distributing wheat flour to some 43,000 migrant families in Grater Noida in Uttar Pradesh.

The NGO, based in Noida on Delhi-Uttar Pradesh border, is managed by the Delhi province of the Indian Missionary Society. It provides one time meal daily to some 36,000 school children from 75 schools across Jharkhand.

“During the school days these children look forward to this one time meal so we want to continue to help our children in some way,” Father Eravimangalam, a Claretian priest, told Matters India over phone on June 1.

In mid April BREAD had distributed 5 kg wheat flour to some 43,000 families living in Noida.

The NGO started the distribution of 10 kg rice and soap in Jharkhand’s remote areas on May 29 and plans to complete it within next ten days.

“We give more than the portion allotted to the children during the school days because it would help their families to a great extent,” said the priest.

In 2010, BREAD started Mary’s Meals scheme in two schools in Jharkhand and now it covers 75 schools in the state. The schools are run by religious congregations and the diocese.

A photo circulated in social media shows the nuns in their religious dress unloading and carrying the rice packets to their school. “The sisters are from St. Rita’s school in Dumka’s Shikaripada and they volunteered to work,” said Father Eravimangalam. As many as 1,580 school students are served one time meal daily by BREAD under Mary’s Meal scheme the priest added.

Nearly 90 percent of the beneficiaries in Jharkhand are tribals and the rest are scheduled caste, the priest said.

“The migrants those who have returned to the state are without jobs, without livelihood and face a bleak future. There is a great need to reach out to these poor people,” noted the priest.

Father Eravimangalam said that they strictly followed social distancing norms while delivering the rice packets to the people.

Indian Missionary Society Father Joson John Tharakan, founded BREAD in 2009 to help underprivileged children across the country.

Father Tharakan, a lawyer, was introduced to Mary’s Meal, the brainchild of the Scottish Catholic Magnus Macfarlane-Barrow to serve meals to children. He started its Indian branch in 2004 through his congregation’s social service wing.

BREAD supports some 45,000 school children in six North Indian states with education and meals.