For over one and a half years now, schools have remained shut owing to the pandemic. In all these months, children coming from low-income backgrounds have neither received mid-day meals nor have they attended online classes due to lack of infrastructure. However, many NGOs came up with distributing grocery kits to these children. One such NGO in India was The Akshaya Patra Foundation that started the Happiness Kits initiative to support the health, hygiene and education of children.
Akshaya Patra asked children from Government and Government-aided schools what they wanted and what they missed the most. They missed going to school, either they were too bored, missed their friends, wanted a classroom environment or missed eating mid-day meals at school. Even after 18 months since the onset of the pandemic, children remain at home and want to go back to school.
See what the mid-day meal beneficiaries have to say:
Some states of India have reopened schools by following guidelines stated by the Ministry of education. Now that children have started going back to school, the smiles on their faces are self-explanatory of their happiness and joy.
Currently, Akshaya Patra is running the Government’s Mid-Day Meal Scheme in few parts of four states of India, namely, Uttar Pradesh, Andhra Pradesh, Karnataka and Telangana. Since the reopening of the schools following the pandemic, a total of 44.6 lakh locally palatable meals have been distributed to children coming from challenging socio-economic backgrounds.
Some of the meals served to mid-day meal beneficiaries in:
In Uttar Pradesh, children from Gorakhpur, Lucknow, Mathura and Vrindavan have been receiving their daily source of nutrition from mid-day meals.
In Andhra Pradesh, children from Gambheeram, Kakinada, Kuppam, Managalagiri, Srikakulam, Vizag and Nellore receive their share of nutritious mid-day meals.
Children in Ballari, Karnataka receive nutritious school meals following the pandemic.
In Telangana, school children from Narsingi, Nawabpet and Kandi are currently being served freshly prepared mid-day meals.
Every state serves locally palatable meals to avoid wastage of food due to dislike of taste. Each meal is served according to nutritional requirement guidelines for Primary and Upper Primary students.
Akshaya Patra is doing its bit to ensure that children remain healthy by eating good food every day. You can support this NGO with your online donations of ₹1100 to serve mid-day meals to children for a whole academic year. When you donate online, you also get a tax exemption certificate for your good deed.
