Bhalo Kajer Hotel: Where you get free meal for a good deed

Exactly between 1:30pm and 2:00pm, you will see a blue truck loaded with big pots of food, melamine plates, and water cans stop near a queue of homeless people standing by the footpaths of Karwan Bazar. The footpath for that lunchtime becomes the poor people's "Bhalo Kajer Hotel", an eatery that is running with the dictum that the poor and homeless would get a free meal in exchange for performing a good deed a day.

"Bhalo Kajer Hotel" started when Arifur Rahman and Sheahanur Rahman Asif of Kamalapur initiated the project under Youth for Bangladesh in December 2019. The hotel is now active in five different locations in Dhaka: Kamalapur, Bashabo, Korail Slum, Shatrasta Mor and Karwan Bazar.

Today, they are feeding around 1,100 hapless people. The menu is nothing fancy; they feed plain steamed rice with vegetables and eggs twice a week, and chicken biriyani twice a week, khichuri with eggs and vegetables thrice a week.

The good deed may be as simple as helping an old lady cross the road, clearing the road of sharp objects like nails and glass shards, taking someone to the hospital, or rescuing a dog or a cat... the list goes on of course.

"Many did not understand the meaning or concept of doing good deeds, having lived their entire life on streets. Food is the reason, why beggars beg and thieves steal and lie, if we can ensure at least one meal then I feel that in their conscience they will do fewer wrongdoings," says Rubel Ahmed Hemel, senior volunteer of the project since the time of inception, adding that even if they fail to perform a good deed on that particular day, they will be fed with the promise that they would do two good deeds the next day.

They have 2,100 daily team members, who manage to come forward with funds. Every day they set aside Tk 10 for the project and at the end of the month, a sum of Tk 300 is given to the project team.

This is one way of managing funds, the other way is when team members who intend to commemorate their parents' death anniversary or celebrate their birthdays, anniversary and decide to spend the money to feed the poor. They either donate the amount they wanted to spend for the occasion or buy the grocery. Then some good souls give hefty funds like Tk 2,000 or Tk 5,000 to the project.

"Volunteer job is an emotional one, sometimes people also discontinue after a while, we depend completely on funds from volunteers," says Ahmed, explaining that two-thirds of the amount comes from team members' groups while the rest is collected from philanthropists.

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