Sponsorship
Many Volontariat programs involve the preparation of food: the midday meals for the sponsored children, all meals for children in the crèches and kindergartens, including those of OM Shanti, all meals for aged people of Amaidhi & Thendral Illam, the meals of the elderly living alone at Oupalam and Dubraypeth, the meals of the apprentices, the employees of Volontariat, the foreign visitors and the invitees. The food is also cooked for the boys of Souriya Home and the children of Nila Illam and their foster mothers, for which a payment is arranged.
All this adds up to the equivalent of thousand meals per day. In addition, snacks and milk are distributed to children before the evening classes start and there are always special preparations for celebrations.
As soon as she had the opportunity, Madeleine created and built a centralized kitchen in the center Selvanilayam. This modern kitchen, opened in 2001, with burners and gas cookers powered by central steam to cook 40 kg of rice per day, replaced the old fire-wood stoves. The centralized kitchen of Volontariat is, today, one of the most modern in Pondicherry and has often been visited.
Three experienced women manage the kitchen,
plan the menus and prepare the meals with other women from Uppalam and two men, ten people in all. It has been a practice here that the cooks exchange their posts, by rotation every 6 months, with cleaners and sweepers, to avoid any sense of the hierarchy of tasks. A storekeeper is in charge of handing out vegetables, fruit, groceries, milk, meat and fish and maintains the stock register.
Every morning, the cutting and peeling of vegetables is a cooperative activity with some elders from Amaidhi Illam. Sometimes, volunteers also participate.
Special attention is given to provide the children with a balanced diet. The type of food varies every day: carrot or beetroot salads, a main dish of rice or pasta, vegetables or fish, meat, eggs, and a fruit or a sweet for dessert. Protein supplements are added regularly: Tofu (cheese soy milk) which was introduced by a French volunteer and Spirulina which is locally produced at Touttipakkam farm since early 2009.
The meals are sent to the crèches, kindergartens and old age
homes. At midday, it is the turn of the aged from Uppalam and the apprentices. Then the sponsored children come in a queue. Each of them is given food in a large stainless steel metal plate, which they carry to the dining area. They sit on floor mats to take their lunch, under the supervision of the older children, who try to keep noise levels down and check that there is no food waste.
There is currently a decrease in the number of sponsored children taking the midday meal at Volontariat premises, although their total number has increased. One reason may be the fall in the number of sponsored children in the nearby school, directly opposite Selvanilayam.
At present, many of the schools are too far from the center of Volontariat for the children to have time to come. Also, government schools and private schools with some government support provide a midday meal, the quality of which is reported to have improved significantly in recent times.
So the social workers of Volontariat are thinking of alternative solutions which will take into account this factor and avoid duplicating the services of the Government of Pondicherry.
