Wellington based Ekta NZ Inc, a four-year-old not-for-profit organisation has been working for for the welfare and wellbeing of needy people in New Zealand’s capital city. Every Saturday, they fail they donate free food for whoever that needs it at different locations and at different times.
Besides being not-for-profit, Ekta NZ is an apolitical and non-denominational charity incorporated in July 2017.
They started off in 2018 with their “The Guru Nanak Free Kitchen Wellington Service” providing free and cooked meals, fruit, tea/coffee every Saturday afternoon from 4:30 to 5:30pm in busy Courtenay Place for the needy.
They are self-funded and rely on kind-hearted Kiwis to sponsor a meal. Started with 50 meals in 2018 (Courtney Place), it turned to 100 meals in 2019 and 250 meals weekly since 2020 (Courtney Place, Porirua, and Lower Hutt). They also run an ethnic food bank in Wellington, every Saturday from 10:30am to 12:00pm at St Peter's Church.
Ekta NZ’s four founder members and multiple volunteers work to serve the community with great dedication. They divide their roles, with Sunita Musa coordinating meals around the city area, responsible for taking care of the finance and paying bills and processing orders.
Abhishek Sharma (who runs Porirua Food Distribution) and Manjit (Lower Hutt) assist her. Karishmeeta Shandil leads the Ethinic food bank activities with Manjit Grewal. Sunita Musa is a cofounder and works as an Integrated Project Lead in the Ministry of Defence in her day job.
During the Covid-19 lockdowns, Ekta NZ played a crucial role by providing support to migrant workers, international students and stranded visitors through arranging accommodation, need-based facilitation, providing groceries and meals. Throughout Alert Levels 3 and 4, they provided groceries to Night Shelter, DCM, Soup Kitchen and the City Mission.
Fefi, who comes every Saturday to get food from Ekta NZ says, “They are doing noble work for the community, and they come with heaps of food for everyone”.
Ekta NZ’s mission is to help the needy and provide food to them irrespective of their religion, faith, language or status. ‘Ekta’ stands for ‘unity’ or ‘to unite’ in several Indian languages and was named so to strengthen the unity in diversity of New Zealanders and bring awareness through inclusivity.
