Give your time with Annmaya

Volunteering

A distribution is mostly ordinary work done carefully: buying food that is actually good, cooking it properly, getting it somewhere hot, and handing it over in a way that leaves everybody their dignity. Almost none of it is dramatic, and all of it needs people.

So this page is honest about what helping looks like before you offer. Most of the useful jobs are unglamorous, some of them are physical, and the one that matters most — serving — is also the one where the smallest carelessness does the most damage.

Before you write to us

Two things are not negotiable, and it is fairer to say them here than after you have offered your time.

Everyone who joins a distribution reads the safeguarding policy and works to it. It is short, it is written for people rather than for lawyers, and the whole of it comes down to putting the person being fed ahead of the photograph, the schedule and the foundation.
Nobody acting for us is alone and unobserved with a child, and nobody asks a person to pose, to wait for a camera, to say thank you, or to be photographed in order to be fed.

You do not need experience, a qualification, a vehicle or a degree. You do need to be reliable about the day you have committed to, because food is bought and cooked against the number of people expected, and somebody not turning up is not a neutral event.

What happens after you write

You send us an enquiry from this page, or write to us directly, telling us roughly where you are, when you are free, and which kind of help you had in mind.
We reply, normally within three working days, and we tell you honestly whether we can use that help and when — including when the answer is "not at the moment", which happens and is not a judgement on you.
If it fits, we tell you where and when to come, what to wear, and what to expect. You read the safeguarding policy before your first distribution.
On the day you work alongside people who have done it before. Nobody is handed a crowd and left to manage it.

If you cannot come in person

Distance help is real help. Writing, translation into the languages our visitors actually read, photography and editing, spreadsheet and record work, or simply telling people who might give that we exist — all of it removes load from the people cooking. Say what you can do and we will tell you whether we can use it.

What we will not ask you for

We do not ask volunteers to donate, and offering time will never turn into a request for money.
We do not ask you to raise a target, to bring a quota of donors, or to sell anything.
We do not ask for your identity documents, your bank details or your payment details in order to volunteer.

If you would rather talk it through than fill in a form, that is fine. Write to Annmaya Foundation at annmayafoundation@gmail.com, or call or message +918004783575. Our registered address is Kerakatpur, Lohta, Varanasi, Uttar Pradesh 221107, India. We aim to reply within three working days.

Buying and checking the food

The day before a distribution is procurement: prices, quantities, transport, and the unglamorous judgement of whether the fruit is good enough to hand to a child. Useful if you know a local market, can carry things, or are simply willing to check a crate properly instead of taking a supplier at their word.

Cooking and packing

Cooking at a scale where a mistake cannot be corrected, to a plan set the night before. Hot, physical, repetitive work with a hard deadline, because food that arrives cold is not the food that was promised. No professional experience needed; a willingness to follow the plan and keep the kitchen clean is what matters.

Serving on the day

The part that decides whether dignity survives the day, and the part with the least room for carelessness. It means equal portions from the front of the queue to the back, nobody waiting in the sun longer than they must, nobody performing gratitude, and nobody made to feel watched. Everyone doing this reads the safeguarding policy first.

Photographs and consent

A donor is owed proof that their gift was carried out, and photographs are that proof — but the person in the frame comes first. This is as much asking properly and recording the answer as it is taking pictures, and it means accepting a no without persuading. Some of the best days produce very few publishable images, and that is a correct outcome rather than a failure.

Records and correspondence

Consent records, review decisions, references against donations, and replies to people who have written in. None of it feeds anybody and all of it is what makes the rest of this site checkable. Suited to anyone comfortable with a spreadsheet and careful with detail, and it can be done away from a distribution.

Writing, translation and design

Plain writing, translation into the languages our visitors actually read, and design that helps somebody understand a package before they pay for it. Everything published goes through the same review as the rest of this site, so this is drafting rather than publishing.