Staff at Indian restaurant Baba's Kitchen in Thảo Điền Ward, Thủ Đức City, HCM City, on August 22 cook meals to donate to COVID hospitals for patients and frontline workers. Photo courtesy of Robin Deepu

Gia Lộc

HCM CITY — Many expatriates in HCM City are providing meals and milk to hospitals and disadvantaged people suffering from the COVID-19 outbreak.

On Monday, when the city started stricter social distancing and the implementation of preventive measures to contain the outbreak, staff at Indian restaurant Baba's Kitchen in Thảo Điền Ward in Thủ Đức City were cooking to provide food to hospitals for COVID patients.

“We were not allowed to deliver the meals ourselves [because of] the new restrictions, but we were able to provide more than 1000 meals thanks to the full support of the People's Committee and two hospitals, who sent ambulances to collect the food,” Robin Deepu, its owner, said.  

He said he has been able to provide meals to Thủ Đức Field Hospital, Children's Hospital No.1, Bình Tân Hospital and Children’s Hospital No.2.

“Our apologies to the hospitals we have not yet been able to contact.

“At the hospitals we delivered to, patients and frontline workers are doing their best to keep their spirits up, so why can't we? Where there's a will there's a way!

“We will not stop. We need support to deliver.”

Deepu and his staff have been cooking 1,000 meals every day for more than one month now and sending to various hospitals.

“Frontline workers and patients need food,” Deepu said.

He also sends food to homeless people and expats who face financial difficulties.

“I have lived here for 10 years. Việt Nam has given me so much good. So I would love to give back as much as I can during this difficult time.”

Robin Deepu, owner of Baba's Kitchen, has been providing food packages to people living in locked-down areas in HCM City’s Bình Chánh, 7, 4, and other districts for more than a month amid the COVID outbreak. Photo courtesy of Robin Deepu

Like Deepu, his friend, Manuel Reale, owner of Pizza Reale Italian restaurant, provided baguette, noodles, water, and milk to poor people in Thảo Điền Ward.

He started just a few days ago after he saw many locals needing help on Facebook in Thảo Điền Ward. 

He spent all the money he earned from selling baguettes on Sunday for buying food for poor people in Thảo Điền Ward. 

"When I posted a Support Day for All Needed People poster on Facebook, many said that poor people with small children need food. Reading these comment made me sad," he added.

Some Facebook users commented on Reale's post that people in the area where they live need support because of the lockdown.

Reale said: “I’m a father of two sons. So I understand very well about families in this situation.”

His business is closed and he does not earn any money now, he said.

“I have been in Việt Nam for almost four and a half years. Việt Nam is a wonderful country and Vietnamese are wonderful people. Hope everything will be back to normal soon.”

Many other expats in Thảo Điền have also been donating vegetables, bread and other foods to poor people and those on streets.

Some of them take food for people living in locked-down areas in the ward.

Meanwhile, city authorities are returning the favour and helping expats, many of whom are in the services sector and have no livelihoods now, by providing them with essential items, utensils and medicines, and testing and vaccinating them against COVID for free. VNS