- Title: Inspired by Mother Teresa, Kenyan businessman helps feed the poor
- Date: 16th April 2020
- Summary: NAIROBI, KENYA (APRIL 14, 2020) (REUTERS) (SOUNDBITE) (English) PHILANTHROPIST, PANKAJ SHAH, SAYING: "I had a small car accident with Mother Teresa's car, they had an old twin cab pick-up. The front-right hand side wheel came out of the pick-up because it was a very old car, and it came and hit mine, for me it was a new car, it hit my car and so I came out and I saw Mother Teresa in that car. I brought her into my car and I drove her to (Mji wa) Huruma Home, and that is where a lot of things changed for my life. I just said I was wild. And then I spent a couple of days with her, when she was around because they did not have a car, so I used to drive her around. And then she invited me to go and spend a few days working for her in Calcutta."
- Embargoed: 30th April 2020 11:12
- Keywords: coronavirus kenya
- Location: NAIROBI, KENYA/ DELHI, INDIA
- City: NAIROBI, KENYA/ DELHI, INDIA
- Country: Kenya
- Topics: Human-Led Feature,Human-Led Stories
- Reuters ID: LVA003C9QP4CN
- Aspect Ratio: 16:9
- Story Text: Safari operator Pankaj Shah would normally be showing tourists around the beauty spots of his native Kenya.
Instead, he is spearheading a volunteer effort to feed thousands of families left penniless when the effects of coronavirus devastated the economy, taking his inspiration from Mother Theresa of Calcutta.
Kenya reported its first case on March 12 and schools were shut the following week.
With businessess closed, families have left the capital and casual work sustaining the vast majority of urban Kenyans has dried up.
The government offered tax breaks - though that is little help to those too poor to pay taxes.
Newspapers called for "total lockdown" but many in slums felt overlooked, left to face starvation.
Someone had to act, Shah decided, and he asked a couple of friends to pitch in and they now operate from a closed local school, supported by a team of volunteers.
Kenya's Asian community rallied to his cause, giving money and buying truckloads of food and vegetables planted for export - but now marooned by the lack of flights.
Shah's volunteers, who call themselves Team Pankaj, have sent out 24,000 hampers since setting up on March 22, each with enough food to last a family of five for two weeks.
He is asking wealthy Kenyans to donate 4,000 Kenyan shillings each ($40) to fund the hampers - about the cost of two pizzas and a bottle of wine, he points out.
Although Shah has never run any kind of aid operation before, he has a guiding spirit: Mother Teresa, whom he met more than three decades ago in Nairobi.
Recollecting his unusual first meeting with Mother Teresa, Shah remembers how a wheel spun off the Roman Catholic nun's ancient pickup truck during her travels in the country and hit his new Mercedes.
This chance accident led to an unlikely friendship between a young businessman and the world famous missionary whose lifelong mission was to serve the poor.
He volunteered with her for three months and adopted a baby girl from one of her orphanages.
(Production: Jackson Njehia, Bharati Naik, Peter Brownlie) - Copyright Holder: REUTERS
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