Food and Education

Children’s dreams know no bounds. Some aspire to be astronauts or pilots, others envision becoming doctors or movie stars. Regardless of race, caste or economic background, all children in their heart of hearts dream of achieving something great. Sadly not enough children in developing countries receive the opportunity to actually make their dreams come true.

At The Akshaya Patra Foundation we work tirelessly to ensure that children are given the support they need to be able to attend school and achieve their goals. By addressing their need for food, Akshaya Patra also helps address their need for education. Through this programme we at the organisation have seen children blossom before our eyes, and revelled in the enthusiasm of young athletes, police officers, doctors, teachers, actors and much more.

This International Literacy Day we appeal to you to join with us so that you can be a part of these magical journeys too. Support a child’s meals for a year or more, and keep a child in school. Remember every child you help educate is another dream coming true.

In developing countries like India, one in six children is underweight while 66 million primary school age children attend class every day on an empty stomach. Our children are the future of our country, and it’s time we fight for their independence – their independence from hunger and illiteracy.

Food and education are two of the fundamental rights of every child in India. But prohibited access to these two rights has kept millions across the country locked in a cycle of hunger and poverty. The Akshaya Patra Foundation has been working incessantly over the past fifteen years to change this narrative by providing free food for education to children in India.

Although we now feed over 1.4 million children a day, and are working to feed 5 million by 2020, there is a long road ahead of us. To truly rid India of child hunger, the combined efforts of the entire nation is required.

Join with us on this Independence Day to be a part of India’s freedom struggle against classroom hunger.

“I want to give something back to society. So I have decided that when I become a teacher, I will help educate the poor,” says Yashoda from Bengaluru.

“I don’t want to see people hungry, so I have decided that when I grow up I will serve the needy,” says Runiguru from Puri.

“I want to become a teacher when I grow up and ensure all the children in my village are educated,” says Ashwini from Bhilai.

“I feel I am indebted to my country and I would like to serve my nation as an army officer,” says Darshan from Bengaluru.

These are the dreams of just a few of Akshaya Patra’s young beneficiaries in India.

These noble aspirations exemplify the important role the Mid-Day Meal Programme plays in effecting social change. By bringing underserved children to school with the promise of easing their hunger, the Mid-Day Meal Programme also introduces them to a platform where they can explore their competencies, aspirations and values.

Being products of an unequal society themselves the children understand the struggles facing millions of families across India and frequently express a desire to pay it forward by working for the benefit of society.

By nurturing the dreams of thousands of children like these we will be able to see a remarkable change in almost every facet of Indian society and economy, in just a generation or two.

And it all starts with every one of us helping to provide a daily, nutritious mid-day meal.

We are grieved by the loss of former Indian President and Bharat Ratna, Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam. A selfless visionary and mentor, Dr. Kalam has been a role model and a source of inspiration to millions across the country. We fondly remember his visit to The Akshaya Patra Foundation in June 2003 where he visited us in Bengaluru, helped serve the mid-day meal to beneficiaries, enjoyed a meal with the students and left an impression that will last a lifetime.

During his visit, Dr. Kalam expressed his happiness saying “This is really a very important mission and I congratulate Akshaya Patra for the excellent work they have done.” We were touched by his kind words of support. Known for his deep love and compassion for children, and steadfast desire to ignite their dreams, Dr. Kalam also highlighted how crucial the mid-day meal programme is in providing nutrition and education in India.

It was with his guidance that we launched our Vidya Akshaya Patra Programme, an initiative focused on promoting education in government schools across the country. Dr. Kalam was an inspirational leader, a dedicated teacher and a true hero. He helped transform the aspirations of our country, and he will be missed but never forgotten.

“Dr. APJ Abdul Kalam was one of India’s greatest treasures. Though he is no longer with us, we are left with his legacy that will shine bright for years to come,” says Madhu Pandit Dasa, Chairman of Akshaya Patra.

The one thing all 7 billion of us – regardless of all our differences – have in common is our home. We all share a little bit of space on this planet Earth, so it’s important that we work together to preserve it. That’s why the theme for World Environment Day 2015 as chosen by the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP) is ‘Seven Billion Dreams. One Planet. Consume with Care.’

Each of our actions on an individual, organisational and community level, impact the environment in some way, and it is up to us to choose whether this will be positive or negative. At Akshaya Patra we have chosen to adopt environment friendly methods of running our mid-day meal programme.

One of our big initiatives in ensuring green practices is the implementation of a solar plant at our Vasanthapura kitchen in Bengaluru. This plant has the capacity to produce 70 units of power a day, and is used to run all the applications in the kitchen that work on single phase power like the computers, fans and other systems.

The plant runs through the use of photovoltaic (PV) cells which convert sunlight to direct current electricity through the course of the day. Using the power of these cells the plant has the ability to run till 4 am. With basic maintenance on a yearly basis, the plant has the capacity to provide environment friendly, reliable energy to the kitchen for decades. Through this plant, Akshaya Patra has reduced its dependence on non-renewable sources of energy to function.

Besides choosing to adopt solar power, there are so many other ways to reduce our negative impact on the environment. Some of the alternative methods we’ve adopted at Akshaya Patra are implementing effluent treatment plants, reducing our carbon emissions by optimising our meal delivery routes and installing BioUrja plants to utilise waste for energy.

Akshaya Patra is also adopting ISO 14001 standards of implementing its Environment Management System (EMS) in the Hubballi, Ballari, HK Hill and Vasanthapura kitchens in Karnataka. ISO is an international organisation for standardisation headquartered in Geneva, Switzerland. We aim to receive ISO certification for the EMS programmes in the four locations in the coming months.

Entrepreneur Lisa Sohanpal’s startup Mini nom nom’s, a children’s food business in London is working to reduce childhood obesity in the UK, while also attempting to reduce hunger and child employment in India.

Mini nom nom’s sells healthy ready-to-eat meals with no added salt and preservatives for British children, and uses a portion of the profit from these sales to feed beneficiaries of Akshaya Patra’s mid-day meal programme at a school in Uttar Pradesh, India.

Seeing an absence of healthy ready-to-eat meals for children (a big problem for working parents), Sohanpal launched her business in 2014, and her products have already been very well received. The Mini nom nom’s meals haven’t just been widely accepted because of the product, they have also gained popularity because of the social values they stand for.

“I met the president of The Akshaya Patra Foundation at a networking event in London, and felt inspired by the charity’s mission to feed five million school children per day by 2020. The sponsorship of the school in India improves attendance, as children get their meals provided; usually a roti (Indian round bread), dal and vegetable curry. This meal means the children don’t have to go out and earn money to pay for their food instead of going to school. Keeping them in school for longer results in the pupils getting better jobs when they leave, which will hopefully mean they can use their education to rise out of poverty,” Sohanpal says.

Through Mini nom nom’s Sohanpal hopes to raise awareness among children in Britain of the hunger and poverty in many countries across the world, and show them how they can be instrumental in making a change.

Cheryl Rebello, CEO of the CherYsh Trust has a dream. She wants to help people from rural areas achieve self-sustainability through the women in their region. To make this happen, Cheryl has partnered with several NGOs, colleges, local businesses and hotels. The CherYsh Trust joined forces with Akshaya Patra when working to foster indigenous development through the community kitchens at Haliyal.

Akshaya Patra along with other hotels in the area requires indigenous recipes, especially big quantities of sambar powder while cooking the mid-day meal. The ladies benefitting from Cheryl’s programme rose to the task, providing Akshaya Patra with 100 kilograms of sambar powder in a short span of 10 days. To make sure the powder matched Akshaya Patra’s high standards, it was put through stringent quality tests and scored high on nearly every parameter. According to Cheryl this was a proud moment for them all when she broke the good news to the ladies. “Now it was no longer subjective or charity. It was about quality,” she said.

The programme is now looking to scale up operations at the community kitchen. To raise funds for this, Shantha Pedru Dodmani from Tatwangi village in Haliyal taluk ran the TCS World 10k marathon in Bangalore recently. Explaining the impact the kitchen has had on the local community, Shantha described it as a “transformation”. The kitchen has helped create employment and foster development in the region, and also provided women with the confidence to be entrepreneurs.

Training sessions are provided to these women in collaboration with Hotel Gateway-Lakeside and Akshaya Patra. These sessions address topics like personal and cooking hygiene, efficient cooking methods and learning local recipes. According to Cheryl, these sessions have helped the ladies rise to the challenge and raise their expectations too.

Akshaya Patra is very proud to have the opportunity to partner with the CherYsh Trust to help support and guide local communities so they can develop into self-sustaining societies.

International Labour Day (May Day) celebrated on May 1st each year, marks a day of celebration of labourers, and the working class around the world. This day is used to promote labour unions, and to recommit to the cause of promoting dignified, safe and humane conditions to work in.

Akshaya Patra also believes in looking after its employees, and makes sure that the staff has a fulfilling, secure work with the Foundation. Employing nearly 4,000 men and over 2,200 women (according to January 2015 records) in different facets across the organisation, Akshaya Patra ensures that each employee enjoys equal opportunity for growth and development.

Even to the lowest paid staff members Akshaya Patra adheres to the prevalent minimum wage directives of that State Government, and where not applicable defers to the directives of the Central Government. Aside from this Akshaya Patra also abides by other statutory laws like the Employee State Insurance Act (1948), Employee Provident Fund and Miscellaneous Provisions Act (1952), and the Payment of Gratuity Act (1972).

Akshaya Patra also promotes employment free of gender bias. Almost all the 24 kitchen units across the country employ women who assist in the cooking process. The decentralised kitchen units in Baran and Nayagarh together employ over 1,400 women from local self-help groups providing them with sustainable income and greater social standing, making them role models for future generations of women in the area.

The cooking process begins as early as 2am in the Akshaya Patra kitchens, so that the food is packed and ready for delivery by morning. In order to make this process safe and comfortable for the staff that has to arrive early, Akshaya Patra provides staff accommodation close to the premises at all their major kitchen units.

Akshaya Patra has also adopted a governance philosophy that helps it behave efficiently, ethically and create value for its employees. The Foundation achieves this through four basic tenets: board accountability to the Foundation and stakeholders (including employees), equitable treatment to all stakeholders (including employees), strategic guidance and effective monitoring by the Board, and transparency and timely disclosure.

It is this focus on constantly creating a healthy, inspiring and fulfilling work environment that has enabled Akshaya Patra to cross so many milestones in the past 15 years. With the continued mutual trust and dedication from both the organisation and employees, the Foundation looks forward to an even brighter future.

Schools are closed for the summer holidays but the halls of the Government Higher Primary School in Shivanagar, Bangalore are alive with the excited voices of little children. Over here summer camp is underway where the children from grade 1 to 7 are learning fun arts and crafts, drawing, sewing, taking computer classes and English coaching.

The energy is high as the children proudly present their stitching samples, albums filled with decorative artwork and hold out their hands to show off their newly learnt mehendi. Small framed, and bright eyed, these young children evidently love attending school in their summer holidays to spend the day with their friends learning a new skill, and enjoying the Akshaya Patra mid-day meal before heading home.

The classes are organised by Dr. C.V Geetha, a vocational training counsellor with a BA Degree in child psychology under the supervision of Ms. Vyjayanthi, the primary school principal. “These children are very bright, all they need is motivation. I believe the community should come together to support them. The children need an avenue to show their creativity,” says Geetha.

Geetha, who believes in teaching basic skills, tells us that the school also conducts regular eye and dental check-ups. A first aid workshop was also organised by Red Cross.

“The parents are very happy that their children are learning these crafts. Even the boys enjoy learning the skills like sewing,” Geetha adds.

Akshaya Patra’s Baran kitchen completes one decade on 25th April, and looking back we see a 10 year legacy of fulfilment, joy and transformed lives.

The Baran kitchen was conceptualised in 2005, when a survey was taken in the district that revealed a large presence of poor and malnourished children. Born to low-income nomadic tribal families employed as labourers, these children were constantly moving from place to place, forgoing their education too.

Though it was apparent it was crucial to set up a kitchen here, the poor road connectivity and infrastructure made it impossible to set up one of Akshaya Patra’s large centralised kitchen units in this region. So the Baran unit became Akshaya Patra’s first ‘decentralised’ kitchen. With support from the local Sarpanch (head of the village) of the area, Akshaya Patra hired and trained women from self-help groups to cook the nutritious food in kitchens across the district, and feed the children.

The Baran kitchen has had some huge advantages to the women and children engaged in the programme. Very often the students benefitting from the food are children of the women employed in the kitchens. This has allowed the cooks the ability to provide safe, nutritious food to their children every day, given them permanent employment so they no longer live as migrant labourers and enabled their children to attend school regularly.

Today Akshaya Patra employes 215 women in the decentralised kitchen, feeds 9,855 children across 101 schools in the region, and also provides nutrition to 1,695 infants across 48 Anganwadi centres.

Though it was a challenge in the beginning to set up the decentralised kitchen, being strangers in an unknown locality, it was a challenge Akshaya Patra gladly accepted. During these past ten years the Foundation has built a fulfilling relationship of trust with the beneficiaries as well as the employees in the region, which has helped spread Akshaya Patra’s programme to all the villages in the district.