Parveen Saeed and her ‘Khana Ghar’ aims to eradicate hunger from Pakistan

By Shah A Siddiqui

One after another inspirational meeting held at the residence of Dr. Mona Kazim Shah and this time she arranged a meeting with an angel lady from Pakistan Parveen Saeed, who has inspired hundreds of thousands people around the world by her noble service of feeding 3,000 hungry poor people in the remote areas of Karachi, Pakistan like Khuda Ki Basti, Koramgi and Surjani town.

I questioned her that how this idea has come to her mind to feed the hunger. She said that once she heard a news that a mother had killed her two kids because she was unable to feed them. This news was a kind of bombshell for her, and she started thinking about the kids and the helpless mother. At the beginning she uses to cook herself at home and feed a few poor kids and family out of her own pocket. But she noted that although she can’t wipe out the hunger from the nation by her devoted help to poor and helpless mass by feeding a few families or people. At the start, she comfortably could afford 300 people in a day to feed them, but gradually as her ‘good deed’ spread as the words of mouth in the mass, the poor, orphans and homeless people started pouring in to grab the food as low as 3 rupees per meal.

She stated that the “Meal could be offered for free to the poor, but We charge money because we want to discourage the poor from being dependent on free food, they feel better once they realize that they have earned their food.” She also said that “We provides one-time meal to the family in just three rupees so they could eat comfortably in a respectful manner and the people eating don’t think they have been fed on pity and sympathy.” By the blessing of God Pakistan is an agrarian nation and we produce, wheat, rice, sugar in huge quantity, simply due to a corrupt system and governance the poor masses are neglected and their basic right to live with dignity is being tarnished, said Parveen Saeed.

‘Hunger is the mother of all crimes’ it is my saying which is true. If you look around all the crimes are happening due to hunger. It is the worst weapon comparable to ‘WMD’ which Mr. Bush and his allies were looking at Iraq on the false report of his own intelligence and at the result Mr. Bush and his allies destroyed Iraq and Afghanistan, but they could not find the WMD, because this weapon is called ‘hunger’ and the world is facing 795 Million hunger people and only in America 15 Million children are suffering from hunger and normal nutritious. According to an estimate roughly 4.5 Million people are facing hunger in Pakistan. The world need to work together to eradicate the hunger from the earth.

It is not possible for Parveen Saeed alone, to wipe out the hunger from Pakistan but her good deed will prevail one day a positive sign in this regard and more and more people will join her in her struggle to feed the hunger.

She has launched this noble service to feed the poor since 2002 and since then she is growing slowly but steady. Now she is getting some funds from the God fearing and kind hearted people from Pakistan and abroad. Another location has also been opened for the needy people since 2008.   According to her, she is doing this good work for the last 14years now and without any fear she is doing it, although she gets threats time to time from different groups in Pakistan.

Her ‘Khana Ghar’ was acknowledged by 2 guests who were present in the meeting and one of them had seen the activities of Khana Ghar during his visit to Pakistan. He was really delighted to see the Khana Ghar where a great number of poor masses were getting meals and eating in the eatery. It has a small area for the people who want to sit and eat there. One of the guests has promised to see the Khana Ghar during his visit to Karachi on December 8, 2015on his way back to the USA.

Parveen Saeed is a house wife. She was living in Karachi’s nice neighborhood but she moved with her family to live with the poor people so that she can understand their living condition and feel the pangs of neighbors. “Perhaps God wanted me to help these poor people, who are suffering from starvation” Parveen said. She also built a small hospital in the neighborhood of poor community, but just before the opening ceremony of the hospital, she received a threat call from a local political party who demanded 60 lakh Rs. She could not run the hospital due to many hurdles and threats from different groups. She had spent a lot of money and time to equip the hospital for the women and children, but unfortunately, since last 4 years the hospital is still unused.

We need a thousand of ‘Parveen Saeed’ to eradicate the hunger and other problems from Pakistan. This is not the job of one person, we need all to join hand to hand and stand with Parveen Saeed to help the poor in Pakistan. We all are doing great, and living in a good condition in the United States, if we can spare one dollar a day for the poor and hunger people and donate the amount to Khana Ghar, it will feed a small family for a whole month, so please think for those who are starving and here in America, we spend more money to watch a movie, for coffee and lunch.