Mumbai,20 February 2025: Only Women, an eight-month-old community of senior women professionals, began its giving-back-to-society initiative, Helping Hands, this Saturday with a visit to Mumbai Roti Bank’s kitchen at Chembur and handed over a cheque to the NGO’s Managing Trustee, D. Sivanandhan, former Director General of Police – Maharashtra.
Five members of Only Women were given a tour of the kitchen by Mr. Sivanandhan and the staff of Roti Bank. Nutritious meals including dal, rice, roti, and sabzi are cooked for thousands of underprivileged people, including children and patients, every day in a nutritious manner without any contact with hands. Only Women members later had lunch with Mr. Sivanandhan and ate the food cooked at Roti Bank.
Founded in December 2017 under Mr. Sivanandhan’s leadership, Mumbai Roti Bank has distributed about 20 million nutritious meals in eight states till now. Narrating the story of its creation and reiterating its vision that ‘no individual should have to endure the hardships caused by hunger’ Mr. Sivanandhan said, “95% of Roti Bank’s benefactors are the corporate houses. Students too collect money and donate to us, which I humbly accept. Some give us grains, some give us mobile vans to transport food and some give us money. I am thankful to all of them”.
Roti Bank is now looking for a 3000 sq.ft. built-up area to have its permanent kitchen. “I will pay for it,” says Mr. Sivanandhan, NGO’s Managing Trustee, and former Director General of Police – Maharashtra.“But I do not want to leave this mission incomplete. What happens tomorrow when I am not there? I want it to run even after I am gone. I want to hand over a permanent kitchen to the people who have stayed with me all these years, who can take forward this mission of providing food to those in need”. The area Roti Bank is looking for can be anywhere between Mumbai and Palghar.
“I have known Mr. Sivanandhan for over 20 years now and I haven’t stopped learning the art of humility, integrity, and dedication from him till today,” said Vidyottama Sharma, Founder & CEO, of Only Women and a former journalist. “For someone who wielded such amazing power as Mumbai’s police commissioner and as Joint Director of CBI, and is even credited with neutralizing the underworld in the city, it is so humbling to see him leave no stone unturned in feeding the underprivileged children and patients without taking a break. Only Women feels privileged to begin its Helping Hands project with a worthy cause,” said the former journalist.
Mr. Sivanandhan, equally happy with the visit, said, “Many people and organizations have visited the Roti Bank kitchen over the years. Only Women team’s visit is close to my heart as it was led by Vidyottama Sharma, a senior journalist, who I have known for over 20 years. It was touching that Only Women, a new community of women professionals, offered to help Roti Bank in any way they could. We all had lunch together. It was a happy meeting for all of us”.
Incorporated in May 2024, Only Women is a domain agnostic networking community and think tank of women thought leaders, with C-Suite executives, founders/ entrepreneurs, and senior independent professionals as members, who meet periodically to enhance their learning curve, deliberate on and take up issues related to women professionals, mentor younger leaders, strengthen bonding and support and have shared experiences. Only Women’s initiatives include expert talks series, knowledge series/ leadership series, roundtables, panel discussions, annual summits, sports events, job fairs for women, mentorship programs for young leaders, sensitization and knowledge workshops, social causes, education of children, and experiential events. Within 15 days of its inception, Only Women was invited to an international summit held in Athens, Greece and it participated in it with a six-member delegation. It also partnerswith Vinayaka Law School Mission, Chennai in training students.
A cheque was handed over by the Only Women members to Mr. Sivanandhan. They included Vidyottama Sharma, Aavrutti Sharma, Nilu Kohli, Ashmi Parekh and Sapna Sharma.