RizqIt: Your Change Becomes Someone’s Lunch

RizqIt: Your Change Becomes Someone’s Lunch

The answers to the most pressing global problems often lie in the simplest of solutions.

Ending world hunger does not require big technologies or expensive interventions, it requires well-planned steps backed backed by empathy and compassion.

This belief has formed the basis of all of Rizq’s programs from the beginning. Rizq started by simply providing a linkage between excess supply of food and demand for food. In 2016 – a year after the Rizq Bachao intervention started – Rizq came up with another solution to design a dignified source of lunch for underprivileged schoolchildren: RizqIt.

Huzaifa, Qasim and Musa were still students at LUMS, frequently buying their own lunch from the Pepsi Dining Centre (PDC), when they noticed something: almost every food order had a minimal change. This small amount – mostly given back in the form of coins – matters little to students, as the coins remain in their wallets indefinitely. But the collective amount of these coins could be significant.

This observation gave birth to what the founders called, “RizqIt”. A simple box with a “RizqIt” logo was placed at the PDC counter, and with every order, students were given the option to donate the change rather than getting the amount back. This money was collected and utilised into the “School Lunch Program” aimed to end undernourishment amongst the school-going children by providing them nutritious sandwiches for lunch. The Program targeted many nearby schools including Jindra Daily Public School.

The students at LUMS wholeheartedly embraced the RizqIt model because it allowed them to become a part of an impactful initiative with what many classified as a miniscule contribution on their behalf. The RizqIt program was a stark reminder of how compassionate action can become a part of our daily routines, rather than being an inconvenience. It also opened the eyes of hundreds of university students to the striking inequalities that exist in our social fabric: a few hundred meters away from what is considered one of Pakistan’s most “elite” institutions, are children unable to afford school lunch.

While the RizqIt program quietly went into the background years after the founders graduated and began such initiatives at a larger scale nationwide, it still provided a strong starting point to all of Rizq’s future interventions. RizqIt proved that Pakistan’s youth are empathic and compassionate, they only require tangible solutions to channel this empathy.

As Rizq goes back to LUMS to celebrate its 10th anniversary, it is pertinent to not only bring back the RizqIt program, but to expand it to all major institutions of the country, to kickstart a national movement to undo systemic inequalities – one lunch plate a time.