Padmanaban Gopalan, founder of the organisation No Food Waste, received the Commonwealth Youth Award 2019 for Asia Region at a ceremony held in Commonwealth’s Headquarters in London.
The food waste management organisation focuses on collecting surplus food from weddings, parties and other places to distribute among the people in need. According to the organisation, nearly 900 people are supplied food by No Food Waste every day across 10 cities. The organisation runs a mobile application that facilitates mapping of “hunger communities” and encourages users to offer food at specific “hunger spots”.
Speaking at the award ceremony, Mr. Gopalan dedicated his award to his “hundreds of volunteers” who help with the mission to “feed people, not landfills.” He added that the award money of £3,000 would be used to expand the “hunger-mapping system” to other Indian cities such as Bengaluru, Hyderabad, New Delhi and Mumbai.
The Commonwealth Youth Awards for Excellence in Development Work are given annually to recognise exceptional contributions by young people aged 15-29 from the 53 Commonwealth countries, who are leading initiatives for development.
Sixteen finalists were chosen out of over 500 nominations this year. Apart from Mr. Gopalan, three regional winners from Nigeria, Solomon Islands and Saint Lucia won recognition for their work in the fields of sexual violence, sanitation and climate change respectively.