General

The nation has seen many fold developments in both public and private sector undertakings. Yet, there is lot to achieve when it comes to 100% literacy rate. Recent surveys report of having approximately 8.1 million out-of-school children. This is a challenging figure but it is not impossible to achieve it with proper channelizing. In this context, the Right to Education comes as a support. The Right to Education is a significant International Act. It is a Fundamental Right that entitles an individual to compulsory education between the age group of 6 to 14 years. It also indicates that if required appropriate and necessary steps should be taken to make this education available to all children primarily in this age group.

This Act was passed in India as Right of Children to Free and Compulsory Education (RTE) Act in the year 2009. It was a historic moment as the passing of this Act guaranteed every child in India, the right to elementary education. In recent past, the educational sector in India has seen many significant developments, but the task of complete implementation of RTE is yet to be achieved. There are many reasons for millions of children to be to of school during their formative years. To mention the most prominent ones are, inaccessibility, poverty, hunger, gender and social inequality. To tackle these crisis many organization across all sectors including Non-Governmental Organizations have pulled up their socks. Among them The Akshaya Patra Foundation is one that is working towards its vision of “No child in India shall be deprived of education because of hunger”.

Taking the first step in June 2000, Akshaya Patra started the mid-day meal programme in Bangalore by feeding 1500 children in 5 schools. Today, it is the world’s largest NGO run mid-day meal programme, serving freshly cooked, healthy and nutritious meals to 1.3 million school children on all school working days. Currently operating in 20 locations across 9 states of India, it aims at feeding 5 million children by 2020. August 2012 saw the celebration of serving the billionth meal, a commendable and noteworthy achievement of Akshaya Patra in the stride towards achieving its vision and mission.

Akshaya Patra is in a constant thrive to reach out to more and more schools, so that many more children can be benefitted by the mid-day meal programme. It implements quality controls and is continuously working towards innovating their technology and processes to make nutritious, hygienic and delicious food on an ever-expanding scale. We are aware that the more food we make, the more dreams we can feed. In many instances, the mid-day meal programme works as a powerful incentive too, for parents to send and keep their children in school. This in turn enables the children to receive formal education for the entire academic year and beyond. Apart from improved nutritional status of students, the mid-day meal acts as a strong reason for them to continue schooling, thereby resulting in decreased rate of school drop-out, increased enrollment and attendance in schools, and better attention span impacting positively to academic progress of the children.

Thus, it is evident that the mid-day meal programme works doubly in countering the issues of hunger and illiteracy. Akshaya Patra applauds all such programmes and efforts that act as a support to the thorough implementation of Right to Education.

The main focus of Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) is to provide nutritious and balanced diet to underprivileged children. ICDS had conducted ‘Nutrition Week Celebration’ and ‘Iodine Awareness Programme’ at Namakkal, Tamil Nadu, which was inaugurated by District Collector- D. Jagannathan.

Collector D. Jagannathan began his speech by stating- “It is the duty of mothers to feed their babies with nutritious diet for the babies to lead a hale and healthy life,” He went on to add- “Every one should know that nurturing a child in a healthy manner is not an easy task, but it is necessary to make children not only good students but also healthy children, for which they need a nutritious and balanced diet”.

Interestingly, The Akshaya Patra Foundation shares similar sentiment, and is actively working towards achieving Millennium Development Goals. With the vision of “No child in India shall be deprived of education because of hunger”, Akshaya Patra is working towards eliminating child hunger and increasing literacy quotient among the children of the underprivileged section.

Set foot in June 2000, by feeding 1500 children in 5 schools of Bangalore, as a part of the mid-day meal program; today it has reached a commendable 1.3 million children across India. Currently, Akshaya Patra operates in 19 locations, across 9 states of India, and covers 9,075 schools to provide freshly cooked meal to the children on all school days. It was a milestone achievement for Akshaya Patra, as the Foundation served its billionth meal in August 2012. It aims to reach out to 5 million children by 2020.

Speaking on the occasion of celebrating the billionth meal, the founding member of Akshaya Patra, Mohan Das Pai maintained that “this organization is the only one of its kind that does not want to exist in future because it envisions a future that does not require it.” This not only inspired the audience but also reinstated the mission in a more profound manner.

Come forward and join hands with The Akshaya Patra Foundation. Be the reason for a hunger free and educated tomorrow.

Reference: The Hindu, 5^th November 2012

Today the 17th of October, we take a moment to analyse how poverty is affecting our children and how we can find ways to overcome it.

World leaders in Millennium Summit committed themselves to cutting the number of people living in extreme poverty (people whose income is less than one dollar a day) by half, by the year 2015.

Many leaders argue that even a dollar a day might not be sufficient to alleviate poverty. In such a case, many Indians live below poverty line whose entire family income is much lower than $1 a day. Here, it becomes essential for everyone in the family to find a job, earn and fill their stomach at least once a day. Hunger, malnourishment, under-nourishment are few of the major factors that hinders the life of such families. Hunger itself accounts for more deaths than any other disease in India. The children become the most vulnerable category. The numbers of child mortality in India is heart breaking. Many children have no option but to fight for food, by means of labour, and sometimes even by anti-social activities. Such is the state of millions of children in India.

The World Bank estimates that India is ranked 2nd in the world, of the number of children suffering from malnutrition. The prevalence of underweight children in India is among the highest in the world, and is nearly double to that of Sub-Saharan Africa with dire consequences for mobility, mortality, productivity and economic growth. The UN estimates that 2.1 million Indian children die before reaching the age of 5 every year – four every minute!! *

All this is because of poverty. How do we solve such a massive problem? Who is responsible? Aren’t we all? There are many solutions and the problem needs to be tackled through various measures at the same time. Thus, it is important that everyone steps in.

We at Akshaya Patra believe that children have the right to food and right to education, which are both essential for tackling an issue like poverty. And hence this became our vision! “No child in India shall be deprived of education because of hunger.”

We serve mid-day meals at government schools ensuring that children not only get one full meal that is nutritious everyday, but also get an opportunity to attend school. We have been serving children for 12 years and we have seen that food does become an incentive to many children to attend school. In the schools we serve, we have seen that there is increase in enrollment, attendance and there is decline in drop-out rate. We continue to serve the children, so that the health and education leads to better employability of children in years to come and that they will achieve better standard of living.

Today, we reach over 1.3 million children. By 2020 we hope to reach 5 million and then even more.

Join us, as we need every support possible to attain our vision! In fact, join a cause that brings resolutions, to alleviate poverty, thereby giving life to many children, and better opportunities to all.

* “Turning the tide of malnutrition“; “2011 Global Hunger Index Report“

“Despite the government’s efforts to improve maternal and child health, the latest report released by UNICEF shows India had the highest number of deaths of children under five years of age in 2011.

…..The UNICEF report, released on Thursday in New York, says almost 19,000 children less than five years of age die every day across the world. India tops the list of countries for 2011, with the highest number of such deaths at 16.55 lakh…..

… In 2011, about half of global under-five deaths occurred in just five countries: India, Nigeria, the Democratic Republic of the Congo, Pakistan and China. Though on the top of list in terms of absolute numbers, in terms of child mortality rate, India ranks 49th with 61 deaths per thousand children in 2011, Sierra Leone has the highest child mortality rate of 185 per thousand……According to the UNICEF report, China reported 2.49 lakh deaths of under-5 children last year, followed by 1.94 lakh in Ethiopia and 1.34 lakh each in Indonesia and Bangladesh….”Read more on TOI.

Akshaya Patra mid day meal even though reaches out at large to children between 6-14 years of age, a program such as feeding in anganwadis are also undertaken to cover children of age 5 years and below in few of the regions Akshaya Patra is located in. Centres include Anganwadis in Baran and Jaipur in Rajasthan. Read more .

More such initiatives need to be adopted by Akshaya Patra, other NGOs and government departments, to minimize the death rate and to reach MDG as soon as possible if not by 2015. Other health issues also need to be addressed for pregnant and nursing mothers as well as infants and children below 5 years of age.

Since 22nd of August, heavy rains have ravaged colonies in Jaipur, the flood has displaced many households leaving them helpless in water logged surroundings. Akshaya Patra was requested to supply food in affected areas by the district administration, Jaipur to tackle issue of food crisis and to participate in relief operations.

The free food was distributed in the low lying areas of Jaipur in more than 12 colonies such as Bhatta basti, Shastri nagar, Jahawar nagar, Transport nagar, Girdhari pura, Muhana mandi, Madrampura , Nahargrah, Parwati nagar, Bagrana, Bagru, Galta gate etc. It was also supplied to the water logged areas of adjoining district of Dausa.

Over 40,000 flood victims have benefitted so far. The food distribution is still continuing in few areas including Madrampura which was visited by UPA Chairperson, Ms. Sonia Gandhi on August 30th, 2012.

The food was distributed through our distribution vans. The vans were stationed near the water logged areas while food was manually shifted to the affected places. The local people helped Akshaya Patra teams in the distribution. The officers of Food and civil supplies, Police and District administration guided whole of the relief operation. A special distributing cell was established at the Jaipur kitchen by Akshaya Patra.

R. Kumar, a victim,  is an Auto Rickshaw puller who lives near the slum area of Sethi Colony Jaipur. His family stays in the village while he earns in Jaipur to support the family. He eats food in a nearby Dhaba (a road side eatery) which could not operate due to excessive rains. Akshaya Patra came to his rescue. In his words “Bhagwaan aap ko khush rakhe, aaj aapko hazaron gareebon kee duaaein milengee” (May God keep you happy, you will get blessings of thousands of poor to whom you have fed today).

This is not the first time that Akshaya Patra has partaken in relief operations. Our kitchens are used as public assets in times of emergencies and food is supplied in calamity struck regions.

Also read link.

When you track conversations on blogs, forums, and social networks in India, evidently yet surprisingly you find many discussions are related to social development. These discussions are also criticisms directly from the general public on various issues, policies and implementation. It is profound knowledge when one gets an opportunity as an organisation to find out that there are more people that are worried about a cause you are striving to work for. When we see that the people on these platforms discuss about mid day meals scheme, education, hunger and children; a non-profit like Akshaya Patra is overwhelmed.

 We come across many such discussions on various forums these days and such discussions do instil our faith and helps us make arduous efforts to reach our goal. It is a confirmation to us that people know about Akshaya Patra and that they are spreading our message. This link will take you to one such brainstorm that we hope occurs every where as by such forums, not only people get to know about Akshaya Patra but also many more NGO’s and individuals get into the groove and take on issues that is really threat to India today. Hunger, infant mortality, education to name a few…

The following was a comment by Mr. Karthikeyan A on LinkedIn about Akshaya Patra.

“The best Public Services are available in Finland and even their schooling system is praised all over the world, We also know their innovation capabilities through some brands like Nokia, Kone ….etc

In both Sweden and Finland, free school meals are offered to all pupils. This practice has been in place since 1948 in Finland, and was introduced to Sweden in 1973.

India 

The Midday Meal Scheme is a school meal programme in India. 120 million children are covered under the Midday Meal Scheme in India, making it the largest school lunch programme in the world. Originally only in the states of Tamil Nadu and Gujarat, it has now been expanded to all parts of India after a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of India on November 28, 2001.

The Akshaya Patra Foundation runs the world’s largest NGO-run midday meal programme serving freshly cooked hot meals to over 1.2 million underprivileged children in 8 states of India. Akshaya Patra works with part subsidies from the government and partly by donations from individuals, philanthropists and corporates. Through Akshaya Patra, it takes only $31 to feed 2 children for a whole year.

The scheme involves provision of lunch free of cost to school-children on all working days. The key objectives of the programme are to protect children from hunger and malnutrition, increasing school enrolment and attendance, improved socialisation among children belonging to all castes, and social empowerment by providing employment for women. Due to the immense cost of catering for so many schoolchildren and the rapid growth of the poor sending their children to school, the government has raised funding for the programme from Rs. 3010 crore to Rs. 4813 crore (Rs 48 billion, $1.2 billion USD) in 2006-2007 ……”

To read more of the discussion, click here.

Find us on LinkedIn @ link.

Prime Minister, Manmohan Singh in his Independence Day speech remarked that as a nation we have achieved a lot during the 65 years introspecting about what remains to be done. In his speech he said “Our children are the biggest strength of our country. If our children are provided with good education and are healthy, then our future would be bright.”

He also mentioned, “This is the reason why we have paid special attention to the needs of children in our policies and programmes.”

The education of children has been made mandatory by law. In the year 2006-07, only 93 per cent of children in the age group 6-14 years were getting admission in schools. Today almost all children in this age group are being admitted to schools.

He also stated, “More than 51,000 new schools have been opened in the country and about 7 lakh teachers appointed in them in just the last 2 years. Now we will focus on improving the quality of education. In the next few months we will put in place a system of continuous assessment of the benefit our children are getting from teaching. Participation of the community and parents would be ensured so that they can be satisfied with the quality of teaching. The Mid-day-meal scheme provides nutritious meals in schools for about 12 crore children everyday. This is the biggest scheme of its kind in the world.”

Malnutrition in children is a big challenge for us. We have taken steps in many dimensions to deal with this problem.

In the last 8 years, the number of mothers and children benefiting from the ICDS has doubled. The process of making the ICDS more effective is in its last stages and will be completed in the next 1 or 2 months.”

On this note Akshaya Patra applauds, indeed because of the Public- Private Partnership between the Central & state government and NGOs, Organization such as Akshaya Patra has effectively implemented Mid day meal Scheme in 19 locations of 9 states across the country reaching 13 lakh children every day. However malnutrition and hunger is still prevalent and children are still out of the school to earn their daily bread. We need to gear up and reach more children. With right resources we will be able to achieve our mission; to reach 50 lakh children every day with Akshaya Patra’s hot nutritious meal by year 2020.

Akshaya Patra depends on government subsidies and grain allotment for 57% of its cost and the rest however is raised from corporate and individuals from all over the world.

Read Prime Minister’s Independence speech 2012 (Full version)

Children always look for variation in taste. Alike a mother, who is always in the attempt to provide taste and variety in each meal by keeping the nutrition level intact, Akshaya Patra too shares the same intent. Akshaya Patra keeps adding variation in its mid day meals to fill the appetite, and treat the taste buds of the tiny tots. Whether adults or children, everyone gets bored of eating the same food. Thus, along with nutrition and hygiene, variation in the menu is also an important prerequisite. Apart from being nutritional and hygienic, food should be relished by the children.

Akshaya Patra’s Mid Day Meal menu differs depending on the food habits and taste of a particular region. Akshaya Patra leaves no stone unturned in making its mid-day meal a welcome treat for the children. It’s a meal which not only feeds the hunger of the children and allows them to concentrate on studies, but also provides something that they relish.

Keeping the same objective in mind, Akshaya Patra’s Jaipur kitchen launched its first ever bakery machine. On this occasion, the chief guest, Mr. Pratap Singh Khachriyavas- the MLA of Rajasthan donated Rs. 10 lakhs for Akshaya Patra. He said that the money was donated from his MLA Fund which can be utilized for any of the kitchen’s activities. He also congratulated Akshaya Patra for its endeavour for school children. Speaking on the occasion, Shri Ratnangadha Govind Dasa, Unit President – Jaipur, said that local students can now savour nutritious biscuits as part of their mid day meal.

This machine has the capacity of producing 30,000 biscuits a day. These biscuits are produced in a hygienic way taking care of the nutritional value. These biscuits will surely tickle the taste buds of the children and add value to the mid day meal programme of Akshaya Patra.

Initiatives like Roti Machine and Bakery units also reflect Akshaya Patra’s readiness to adopt technology, innovation and new development to continue serving food for the children in the best possible way.

If you like these initiatives of Akshaya Patra; do connect to us through our social media platforms, give us your feedback and opinion, spread the news about our endeavours, and most importantly donate and encourage others to donate towards a meaningful cause.

After I finished high school in Germany, I did an around the world trip in which I got to know the beautiful nature of the Indian people, but outside of India. When travelling, I realized that working with the local nation, one receives the best insight of the people’s culture. So I waited for my first semester vacations and organized my internship at Akshaya Patra. I wanted to work for The Akshaya Patra Foundation (TAPF) in Bangalore primarily, because I wanted to get in touch with the Indian culture. Whether it is the working spirit in the office, the Indian driving manners in Bangalore’s daily mad traffic or the very welcoming Indian people: There is so much to learn and understand. Thus, my first reason was to come closer to the Indian culture, religions and life.

During my first trip I saw a lot of poverty, especially young children – the weakest and last guilty – suffering from malnutrition, diseases and low education. In this moment I decided to make use of my opportunities and help the needy at least one time in my life. Then I read about Akshaya Patra and its project. I found there work very sensible, comprehensive and convincing. I was astonished about their facilities and success and decided to become part of their project. When one sees the children smiling happily, notices the hope which the Akshaya Patra’s project spreads in their lives and reads about the success stories of young, poor and unfortunate children who became doctors, engineers, teachers etc one knows that volunteering for Akshaya Patra is totally worth the effort.

Moreover, I wanted to know what working for a NGO means, and be part of the “helping” side of this world. Additionally, a working experience abroad is always broadening one’s horizon, because working and communication patterns are completely different and, therefore, widening experiences. Apart from that the Indian food and warm weather was very tempting ;P.

When I heard about Akshaya Patra, I knew it was perfect for exactly what I wanted to do in India.  I come from a mixed background, where my father is from India and my mother is from UK.  However, being raised in America, I never really knew much about India.  I always wanted to travel here and learn about the country and its people and also, I wanted to contribute.  I wanted to help make India even greater than it already is, and I think Akshaya Patra is doing exactly that.  Akshaya Patra, through education, is literally building the future of India one meal at a time, and I find that fascinating.

The Kitchen Visit...

Before going to schools, I visited the Akshaya Patra kitchen in Bangalore early in the morning to get an idea of the entire process of food production.  What I saw astounded me.  Never before had I witnessed such an efficient and pragmatic facility dedicated entirely to making food.  The kitchens produced the basic nutritional essentials (rice, sambar, dal, and curd) for thousands of children in the span of just a few hours, utilizing hygienic methods of cooking and transportation within the facility.

Tasting the Akshaya Patra mid day meal...

Before we left to some of the schools, we ate some of the rice and sambar for lunch.  At first, I was skeptical as to whether it would taste okay because it was produced in such massive quantities so quickly.  But upon my first bite I realized – It was delicious. In many cases, the food provided by Akshaya Patra surpasses the quality of the food served in public schools in the United States.

At the School…

I followed the food bus to two small schools a few kilometers away from the kitchen.  There we saw students eating, playing, and laughing during their lunch period.  In the first school, we spoke with a small boy named Prasanna after he sat down with his friends to eat rice and sambar.  He explained to us that he, like most of his friends, doesn’t eat at home.  His family can’t afford it.  So instead, he comes to school, where Akshaya Patra provides a nutritional, hot, tasty, and filling meal.  If it weren’t for these meals, Prasanna and so many others like him wouldn’t even go to school.  They would instead do menial jobs like sweeping and washing dishes to earn enough money for a meal.  I took the liberty to take some pictures of the students.  But I didn’t realize how much they would enjoy being photographed!

What the visit to the school and kitchen meant to me…

The visit to both the kitchen and the schools was a completely new experience for me, and it really made me understand what Akshaya Patra was all about.  Seeing and speaking with the students made them real to me and I truly realized why Akshaya Patra is so important to the future posterity of India.  If only everyone in the world could visit the schools in the same way as I did; then Akshaya Patra would have so much support that hunger would be obsolete in India.  I really do believe that the goal is attainable in the future, but there is still a long way to go.

Kavi Mathur

Grade 12

Rutgers Prep school

Somerset, New Jersey

USA