Over £9,000 raised to support international hunger relief charity.
A Birmingham-based company has seen one of its employees raise more than £9,000 over the past two years in support of an international relief charity to help tackle global hunger.
Rinisha Tailor, Professional Advisor at Carter Brown, part of Antser which is based in Edgbaston, has raised an incredible £9,700 for Rise Against Hunger, a growing global charity that involves supporting young children to remain in school as well as providing life-changing aid to vulnerable people.
Having first heard about the cause from a friend who attended one of the charity’s food packing events, Rinisha spent time doing her own research on Rise Against Hunger. After falling in love with the concept, she then dedicated two years to fundraising for the charity.
Talking about the experience, Rinisha said: “Every Christmas I have tried to do something charity based with my children and some friends. So instead of buying each other’s children gifts every year, I asked that we all donate to a charity.
“Rather than just putting money in I also tried to arrange things that actually involved us physically contributing and giving our time as well as money. When I spoke to Rise Against Hunger, I was told they have never had an individual arrange an event before, as they are always corporate events. I’m sure she thought I was mad when I first contacted her. We originally planned to hold a food packing event where we would pack the individual meals ourselves, which was something a lot bigger than we normally do, but I really felt it was something I wanted to achieve.
“However, due to Covid restrictions and the urgent need to help families who need support now, Rise Against Hunger volunteers agreed to pack the meals for us so that it could be sent in the container which left the warehouse in Italy on 15th June.”
So far, Rise Against Hunger has distributed roughly 543,410,686 meals to recipients in 78 countries, including India and Africa, with a mission to end hunger in our lifetime.
Over the past two years, her friends, family, and fellow Carter Brown employees have donated to help Rinisha raise as much money as possible for the charity.
She said: “We raised enough for 174 boxes which equates to 37,360 meals. Rise Against Hunger agreed to top up the remaining amount to meet the container requirements which means a total of 209 boxes (45,144 meals) will be sent as part of our lot. To put this in context, one box keeps a child in education for a year.
“After two years, this truly feels like an amazing achievement. Thank you to everyone that supported me, in particular The Shanta Foundation for facilitating donations and payments and The Martin James Foundation for their donation and social media drive.”
Kieran Darnell, Service Delivery Director for Carter Brown, commented: “We are so proud to have employees like Rinisha at Carter Brown who truly strive to go above and beyond to deliver better outcomes for not just those in local communities but worldwide too.”
Alberto Albieri, President at Rise Against Hunger, said: “Taking action to help end hunger has never been more important. The past year and a half has proven extremely difficult for those facing hunger due to the pandemic’s effects around the world. We are beyond thrilled to count on such amazing hunger champions who advocate to fight hunger and support Rise Against Hunger’s work even from their home.”
The meal boxes have now been assigned to schools in Ghana and the Carter Brown team will be sharing regular updates of the journey via their social media pages.
With more than 821 million people impacted by hunger around the world, reports show that school feeding programs help prevent hunger, which can greatly improve school enrolment and learning outcomes.
If you want to get involved, you can donate or sign up as a skills-based volunteer at riseagainsthunger.org.