General

Poverty continues to be one of the biggest hurdles India faces in its quest to emerge as a superpower of the new Millenium. There seems to be a ‘thin red line’ we must cross before we take a leap to the other side of the fence. Poverty is the vicious ‘keeper’, guarding it.

A new study on nutritional challenges reports that more than half of child deaths in India are due to malnutrition. The rise of similar strident alarms has fallen on deaf ears.

Akshaya Patra’s call for action has resonated with thousands of people across the world who wish to make a difference.

We continue to believe that education is the only key for a cross over. No short cuts have been discovered so far. Our only appeal is, “Let’s give our children their right to a brighter future. Let’s give them their right to food and education.

In Assam, The Akshaya Patra Foundation has been operational for more than a decade, serving hot, nutritious and tasty mid-day meals to children to support their nutrition and education. In February 2010, it began implementing the Mid-Day Meal (MDM) Scheme—now rechristened the PM POSHAN Abhiyaan—with the feeding of around 8,000 children from a rented place in Amingaon locality in North Guwahati. Since then, it has come a long way to become one of the most admired NGOs in Assam. It currently feeds over 43,000 children in two locations in the state, Guwahati and Jorhat, with the continued support of the government and donors.

Akshaya Patra Guwahati

An NGO in Guwahati with a decade-long experience, Akshaya Patra began operations from a rented place in 2010. In 2017, the government allotted land to build a new kitchen while the Airports Authority of India (AAI) sponsored the CAPEX for the same. It built a new unit with the capacity to prepare and serve 50,000 mid-day meals. It currently serves mid-day meals to over 32,000 children studying in more than 550 schools in two districts of Assam – Kamrup (75 percent coverage) and Kamrup Metro (25 percent coverage).

As the district is located on the banks of Brahmaputra river, most people are dependent on fishing and related daily-wage activities for their source of income. The children from these families come to the school with the assurance that they will get a full meal in the afternoon from Akshaya Patra.

Akshaya Patra Jorhat

In Jorhat, Akshaya Patra opened its first kitchen on 29 July 2022—the 2nd kitchen for the NGO in Assam and 65th in the country. Through this kitchen, it primarily caters to the children of people working in tea estates in the region. This kitchen has the capacity to prepare and serve 25,000 mid-day meals. Currently, it feeds over 10,000 children studying in more than 150 schools in the region.

Over the years, livelihood opportunities in tea plantations have attracted thousands of people to this northeastern state. Most of these people have settled in and around the tea plantations where they work, while their children work in the government schools in the vicinity. As these people have to go to work early in the morning, their children often come to school on an empty stomach. The NGO in Jorhat is making an impact by ensuring these children’s access to MDM, which is the first proper meal of the day for many of these children.

Menu in Assam

Akshaya Patra has always strived to adhere to local palate and regional acceptability in its capacity as a mid-day meal NGO. In Assam, people prefer to eat rice, and therefore, the menu in the state is rice-based. Similarly, mustard oil is preferred over soya oil and is a primary constituent of the Akshaya Patra menu in Guwahati and Jorhat. Accordingly, it serves rice, pulao, khichdi, kheer, varieties of dal and vegetable preparations, such as aaloo matar tomato sabji, kabuli chana sabji and louki with chana dal sabji, etc.

Basically, the menu combinations are designed to ensure that the prescribed MDM nutrition norms are maintained even when the menu varies from day to day. Furthermore, the Foundation has always attempted to improve food consumption through innovative methods. In Guwahati, for instance, it has introduced pitha—a rice cake preparation—as an additional item, which has become quite popular among children as evident from the increase in mid-day meal consumption on the day it is served.

Beneficiary Testimonials

In ensuring children’s access to hot, nutritious and tasty mid-day meals every single day, Akshaya Patra aims to support their education and consequently, their dreams and aspirations.

Over the years, Akshaya Patra has established itself as one of the most credible NGOs not just in Assam but the entire country. If you seek to donate to a charity, you need not look any further. Join the Foundation’s mission to reach out to over 3 million children every school day by 2025 and help it in its pursuit of a world where ‘No child in India shall be deprived of education because of hunger.’

The Akshaya Patra Foundation, world’s largest NGO run school meal program bags the Tech Award 2009, a signature program of The Tech Museum, San Jose, California, USA. Akshaya Patra won the Microsoft Education Awards, in the category of education under The Tech Museum Awards 2009. The Award was presented with a cash prize of $ 50,000 at a glittering ceremony in San Jose, USA, for social entrepreneurs leveraging technology to benefit humanity.

Akshaya Patra has won accolades from all corners for its yeomen work for the mid-day meal program in India and their astounding performance in feeding over one million school children every day. Recently former US president Bill Clinton commended Akshaya Patra during his key note address at the PAN IIT conference in Chicago.

Akshaya Patra, was selected for being a pioneering program in India’s social and developmental sector, using technology extensively to provide freshly prepared, wholesome meals to over one million school children daily in over 6,500 government schools in seven states of India This meal is an incentive for children to come to school, stay in school and provides them with the necessary nutrients they need to develop their cognitive abilities to focus on learning. The program is a strategic intervention aimed at unlocking the vicious cycle of poverty and hunger.

Shri. Madhu Pandit Dasa, Chairman, The Akshaya Patra Foundation, said, “This award is actually a recognition of thousands of supporters from the corporate world, individual donors, professional governance provided by my co-trustees, board of advisors, support of the state and central government and thousands of Akshaya Patra staff, to bring a smile on the faces of the underprivileged children of our country and to empower them with education.”

He further added “We have been following the best practices of the corporate world in terms of transparency and governance which we believe is essential to conduct the program on such a grand scale. We also thank God for making us instruments in this great service and pray that we will be able to extend this service to lakhs of more children to support them with good education.”

On a recent business trip to India, a fellow Silicon Valley business executive was impressed by the management philosophy of the companies we visited. “The founders stay long after the companies become successful… They bring in family members to take part… Social causes and philanthropy are a key part of everyday business…”

This socially-responsible management style which I call, “Spiritual Capitalism” is not unique to India. However the country’s dramatic social challenges do tend to spur a significant amount of philanthropic action by its countrymen and women.

As we celebrate Thanksgiving, SandHill.com spoke with two of I.T.’s business leaders – and active philanthropists – Infosys Technologies co-founder Narayana Murthy and Sycamore Networks co-founder and chairman Desh Deshpande – about their success with the Akshaya Patra Foundation, a non-profit devoted to feeding and educating underprivileged children. The leaders explain the success of Akshaya Patra, how they became involved in their philanthropic efforts and how other technology executives can find a way to increase their practice of social capitalism.

Click here to read the whole article

‘A simple child…
That lightly draws its breath
And feels its life in every limb,
What should it know of death?’

from ‘We Are Seven’ by William Wordsworth

The truth of the matter is that the children of India need our help. The country is home to nearly 44% of the world’s malnourished children and many do not have access to a single meal in a day. If food is not available, education is neglected, perpetuating the vicious cycle of poverty.

Against enormous odds, people are coming together to prevent this and help children stay in school. It is a massive endeavor which involves the kindness and support of the Government, the corporate sector and donors such as you. One meal a day can mean the difference between poverty and prosperity. We ask you now to support us by sponsoring a boy and a girl for a year. A healthy meal can make all the difference to a hungry child. It will help them stay in school where they belong. Their lives will be changed forever.

Are you an individual donor?

As an individual donor, you have the power to stand up and make a difference. With over 35 000 supporters who believe in the cause, Akshaya Patra is a large family of people working together to change the future of India by reaching out to Her children. Join us now and be a part of that change.

Given below are several ways available for you to donate:

Credit/Debit cards International Donations Internet banking Wire transfer

Mobile phone  Cheque/ DD  ECS Donation

When did you last give to charity? More importantly, do you know what happened to the money you sent? And do you know who you can speak to in order to find this out?

It’s sad but true, that not all charitable organizations give you accountability of your money and donations. Therefore a donor who is convinced about a cause willingly sends in money to support the charity but loses faith when they are not responded to. In striking contrast, transparency and donor communication are the cornerstones of Akshaya Patra, and we strive hard to keep all our donors informed on our activities through the year. Not only do we send out regular online and print newsletters, but we also update our website and blog regularly to inform donors of how we are growing and spending their money.

More importnantly, our Toll Free Number is widely available to all our donors, making it easy for you to call and speak to one of our executives in order to obtain information on anything regarding Akshaya Patra. If you want to find our about our specific areas of work, how we make this school meal program available to one million children everyday, how our kitchens work at clockwork efficiency, and so on, dial us today at 1800-425-8622.

Operators are available at this number from 9:30 am to 7:00 pm and will willingly answer all your queries. Individuals wanting to volunteer or donate, as well as corporate house, interested in partnering with us for their Corporate Social Responsibility initiative are welcome to dial in. We’re waiting for a call from you!

“…the pressure has started to get to me and I cannot take it any longer…I hope they will understand,” says a 17 year old boy’s suicide note1.
Teenagers today are under so much pressure to perform well in their exams that they take the most extreme and final step of ending their own lives. According to the latest figures available, in 2006 alone 16 students a day killed themselves due to exam stress in India.2 Yet there are no absolutely clear and distinct signs that warn parents of their child’s suffering. Many feel helpless and shocked when confronted with such a tragedy.
However, exam pressure is not the only issue facing children. In a world that demands more and more of them everyday, many students feel lost and unsure of themselves. This is even more true of the millions of children in India who suffer from the effects of depression.
Educationalists are increasingly becoming aware of the importance of informal, life skills training in child development. Life skills are a set of cognitive, personal and interpersonal skills that help children cope with the pressures of growing up.
In India today, there has been a noticeable shift in emphasis from classroom based learning to experience based education. At the forefront of implementing this change are non-profit children’s organizations like The Akshaya Patra Foundation.
This Bangalore based, children’s charity provides life skills training to nearly 40 000 students in Karnataka through its ‘Akshaya Life Skills’ initiative.
Conducted in collaboration with Edumedia, India’s most awarded and respected children’s events company, this program gives children the opportunity for new and exciting life experiences that develop their personality as a whole.
With everything from leadership abilities to motivational and confidence building lessons, Akshaya Patra’s life skills program helps children where they need it most: it gives them the boost they need to deal with life.
As Sultan Ahmed of Edumedia says, “It is our responsibility to provide children with all the tools they need to face life. The greatest gift we can give them is the inspiration to dream.”
Akshaya Life Skills does just that for 35 000 children in India.

1, 2, http://www.dawn.com/2008/05/20/int12.htm

The Akshaya Patra Foundation has come to the rescue of several thousand victims who were affected by floods caused by heavy rains in coastal Andhra Pradesh. Akshaya Patra distributed more than 5,000 food packets (prepared in the foundation’s kitchen in Visakhapatnam) to the people in the flood- affected areas. Low lying areas in the city were flooded due to rains which were a result of cyclone ‘Jal’ which hit coastal Andhra earlier this November.

Akshaya Patra also supplied drinking water to most flood-affected residents of Sheelanagar and surrounding colonies, as most of them did not even have access to their homes.

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Six out of 10 children are undernourished in India. Malnutrition accounts for 50% of the child death in this country’. A report on the state of food insecurity in rural India, states that more than 1.5 million children are vulnerable to malnutrition because of the raise in global food prices.

Chronic undernutrition in childhood is linked to slower cognitive development and serious health impairments later in life and reduce the quality of life and also the economic productivity of people.(Scrimchaw 1996). Hence malnutrition is not only the effect but is also a cause of poverty.

The report, released as part of the 2008 Global Hunger Index by the International Food Policy Research Institute (IFPRI), ranks India at 66 out of 88 countries. The report says that regardless of the healthy economic growth, India scored worse than nearly 25 sub- Saharan African countries and all of South Asia, except Bangladesh.
The report further says that, when Indian states are compared to countries in the Global Hunger Index, [the central Indian state of] Madhya Pradesh ranks between Ethiopia and Chad.

A report brought out by the United Nations World Food Programme says that More than 70% of children (under-5) suffer from anemia and 80% of them lack vitamin supplements. According to the report, the proportion of anemic children has actually increased by 6% in the past six years with 11 out of 19 states having more than 80% of its children suffering from anemia.

When we talk about these horrifying statistics we do not intend to glorify the poverty of our country to the outside world. Rather this is to aware our citizens about the brutal reality facing our nation and work towards the solution.

The Akshaya Patra Foundation is an organization which has been striving to make sure that no child in India is deprived of their basic right to food. The organization believes that mare feeding is not important. What matters is, providing the children a meal which has a high nutritional value.

Akshaya Patra provides a non-negotiable three item menu which is different in different states depending on the staple diet of the respective region. The organization experienced that an average intake per child is between 70 to 80 grams. As a mother finds out a new tasty recipe everyday to increase the intake of the child, Akshaya Patra similarly struggles day in and out to make the meal tasty and nutritious. For an instance as children does not like to eat rice much, the organization has tried to make the menu interesting and thereby increase the intake by replacing rice with idly once or twice a week.

We know that milk contains calcium and other essential nutrients and it help children to grow their bones. Children with the age group of 4 and 8 require 800 mg of calcium a day while children with the ages of 9 to 18 need 1,300 mg a day. In order to ensure that children also get sufficient calcium Akshaya Patra serves curd to the children.

Starting with 1500 children in the year 2000 currently the organization is feeding 1.2 million children every day in 8 states and 18 locations across India. The organization has an ambitious aim to feed 5 million children by 2020.
Help the foundation eliminate hunger from our nation. Join the movement and be a change so that these statistics does not haunt us anymore.

There were days when poor students would go to Teachers house to have “Varanna” in which the students would be fed once in a week. On a rotation, the student would go to different teacher’s house and other rich people in the locality. Now, many of them have grown and have a respectable position in the society.
This clearly shows the relationship between the food and the education. The best a society can offer a child is the education; because once the child is educated they become a responsible citizen of this country. To provide a good education, the child should not be hungry. This is precisely the reasons why I wanted to voluntary “Akshaya Patra Foundation”.
When I first met the Akshaya Patra team, I was surprised to know they are using the latest Management concepts, statutory disclosures etc. There method of analysis, brain storming sessions was amazing. For me, I am trying to put the experience of my work (Strategic Planning) to Akshaya Patra and it turn take their best practices and implement in my company. It is a win- win situation for me.
The message I would like to give for other volunteers are, give the best of your knowledge, time, and experience to Akshaya Patra and in turn learn the dedication, hard work, practices from the Akshaya Patra. This is very unique because you can share and learn as well.