Terminate Hunger began during the COVID-19 pandemic, when daily wage workers and poor families in Hyderabad were suddenly left without income or food. Its founder and president, Mohd Imad Ali, started it as a student. That detail gave his Hyderabad Hustlers conversation its title: A Student Started an NGO.

From a response to a routine

Plenty of relief efforts started in 2020 and ended when the lockdowns did. Terminate Hunger did not. When Hyderabad Hustlers spoke to Imad in August 2024, the organisation had been feeding hungry, poor and needy people every day for more than 600 days. The word that runs through the conversation is daily; one chapter is simply titled "Daily karna hai!" (it has to be done every day).

Studying and running an NGO

The conversation has a chapter on engineering and running an NGO at the same time, and others on what his parents made of the work and how he changed as a person along the way. He also talks about the people who believed in the idea first, the criticism that comes with public work ("Reply to haters"), and a chapter titled "Getting attacked".

The questions he does not avoid

The conversation goes into uncomfortable ground: why people are hungry in the first place, corruption, whether blaming the government is enough, the belief that "NGOs are fake", and whether Terminate Hunger feeds only one community. He also discusses zakat, the organisation's Ramadan project, and the long-running debate between feeding people today and educating them for tomorrow.

What it has become

Terminate Hunger's own figures, as published on its website:

  • 9 lakh+ meals served and 500,000+ people reached
  • 4+ years of service
  • 200+ volunteer family members

The organisation is registered for 12A and 80G tax exemption, so donations from Indian taxpayers can be claimed under those sections.

How to get involved

The conversation ends on how people can work with Terminate Hunger, and the organisation lists volunteering and donations on its website. For Hyderabad's students in particular, Imad's story makes a simple point: you do not have to finish your degree before you start doing useful work.

This story is based on Hyderabad Hustlers' conversation with Mohd Imad Ali and on figures published by Terminate Hunger. Numbers are as stated by the organisation.