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Soup kitchens spring up across Java amid latest COVID-19 restrictions
From public kitchens to restaurants, communities and volunteers cook meals for healthcare workers, volunteers as well as COVID-19 patients in hospitals, isolation centers and self-isolation to ensure food security during the latest COVID-19 restrictions in Java and Bali.
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Family Welfare Movement (PKK) members in community unit (RW) 05 in Jagakarsa, South Jakarta prepare food packages on June 30. The community-run public kitchen provides food for local residents undergoing self-isolation or affected by the COVID-19 pandemic. (Antara/Indrianto Eko Suwarso)
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ommunities and volunteer groups across cities on the island of Java, the country’s most populous island, which have been put under the emergency public activity restrictions (PPKM Darurat) have opened soup kitchens to provide food for overwhelmed healthcare workers, COVID-19 patients and other people whose livelihoods are affected by the outbreak.
Volunteers in Yogyakarta have set up a movement that organizes public kitchens focused on providing food packages for female porters working in markets across the province. The movement, dubbed the Yogyakarta Female Porter Public Kitchen, picked female porters as its focus because they are believed to have little to no social and financial support in the face of the pandemic.
Some porters have no choice but to keep working at crowded markets and living off daily earnings despite the high risk of COVID-19 transmission. They used to earn up to Rp 50,000 (US$3.45) per day on average before the pandemic but now they earn less than Rp 30,000 since people have stopped going to markets during the restrictions.
“Our goal is to make sure that female porters in Beringharjo Market [and other markets across Yogyakarta] don’t miss lunch for a single day,” Yogyakarta Female Porter Public Kitchen co-coordinator M. Berkah Gamulya said on Monday.
Read also: A year in COVID-19: Women in informal work prove mettle against pandemic blues
Since its establishment in October last year, the movement has delivered more than 23,000 lunch boxes for porters working in markets across Yogyakarta. Berkah said it aimed to provide nearly 2,500 boxes every day during the PPKM Darurat period from last Saturday until July 20.
He added that the movement had been receiving donations of raw food material for the lunch boxes, as well as money from across the country.
