Ghanaian chef cooks up a movement to fight hunger—feeds over 15,000 on World Food Day: Video
On October 16, Ghanaian chef Amoakoa Sintim-Aboagye, popularly known as Chef Abbys, turned the streets of Accra into an open-air kitchen to mark World Food Day.
The event brought together more than 40 food truck vendors and served over 15,000 free meals to residents.
The celebration, tagged as a “big street feast”, fed hundreds of locals, including media, influencers, and people from underserved communities. Traditional Ghanaian dishes were the highlight, creating a vibrant scene that mixed food, culture, and community.
"We had one vision in mind, to make everybody happy. So, whatever we're doing, we had it in mind. I wanted to make everyone happy. So, it came into the serving. We made sure we smiled to everybody. We made sure we made everybody feel loved. And that was our baseline for this event," she said.
Chef Abbys, recently honoured on TIME magazine's 2025 list of the 100 Most Influential Creators for her efforts in using food and social media to promote African culture, said she hopes to make World Food Day a national day of free meals across Africa. She declared October 16 as Free Food Day in Ghana and has plans to expand the idea beyond the country.
“My vision is that every October 16th, World Food Day will be Free Food Day in Ghana and hopefully in Africa. It's going to be extended in so many other countries,” she added.
According to the World Food Programme (WFP), over 36 million people in West and Central Africa are nearing emergency hunger levels due to ongoing conflict, economic challenges, and extreme weather. Rising food and fuel prices continue to worsen the situation in Ghana, Guinea, and Côte d'Ivoire.
Out of the over 2 million facing food insecurity in Ghana, a million of those are children under five who are chronically malnourished, WFP reports.
This story is written and edited by the Global South World team, you can contact us here.
