On December 4, 2015, a number of families set out from their respective slums across Dhaka city and congregated at the Pani'r Tanki Field, Mohammadpur. Waiting for each family was enough basic food to last two months, courtesy of Durnibar Foundation, a youth based non-profit organisation founded in 2012 and dozens of its volunteers, led by a team of Durnibar board members.

Funds raised from Durnibar Foundation's "Hunger Action 2015" event, which took place last month, were used in purchasing rice and lentils. During the "Save the Starving" event, these were distributed to 50 underprivileged families. The volunteers divided the families into groups and helped them form queues as they started distributing sacks of rice and lentils. The event "Save the Starving" is repeated every two to three months throughout the year and has been distributing food to the same families since October 2014.

The families present at the event all had a few things in common; they combat extreme poverty on a daily basis and have children of school-going age. These children spend their days working to earn and feed their families instead of studying in classrooms with books and stationeries. By forgoing education and engaging in child labour these children were losing their chance at having a bright future, not to mention being exposed to harmful conditions at various workplaces. Durnibar Foundation, in addition to providing food through "Save the Starving", has arranged for these children to attend local schools in their areas.

When asked about the purpose of "Save the Starving", Azman Anju Khan Chowdhury, the General Secretary and Founder of Durnibar Foundation replied, "The desired outcome of this event is a bit of a chain reaction, by providing a number of families with basic food throughout the year, we are not only meeting their food costs, but this also means their children can attend school instead of engaging in child labour to earn for food. In the future, these educated individuals will in turn send their children to school as well. In the long term this is likely to increase literacy rates and bring down poverty levels."

This event was held under the "Feeding Bangladesh" project of Durnibar Foundation. This project, the biggest of the foundation, aims to help root out certain problems that are gnawing away at our society – hunger, malnutrition, child labour, lack of education and poverty, by taking steps such as raising awareness, campaigning, fundraising and distributing food.

Jorina Begum, 47, a dweller of the Bosila slum who has been a part of "Save the Starving" since the beginning, explains, "Previously, life was very miserable for my kids as they had to work to somehow ensure that we managed to eat twice a day. But now they are going to school after Durnibar Foundation handed over a year's basic needs to us." Many slum dwellers like Jorina had similar things to say about the event. The event ended around evening, after the volunteers distributed all the food and bid farewell to the families.

Salma Mohammad Ali fears she is becoming a crazy cat lady and uses writing as a means to grasp on to sanity. Send her your views/hate/love at https://www.facebook.com/salma.ali209