General

Finally with the grace of God, I did make it back home yesterday. While this was one of my over scores of previous visit back home over a span of forty years, I don’t hesitate or mince words in saying it openly and clearly that this visit turned out to be one of the best and fruitful for me than any before. Our visit to the kitchen at Bangalore on March 5th a success and unique experience.

This visit indeed changed mine as well as that of my wife’s perspective towards life. The selfless service being performed in a best possible way under the circumstances deserves all the credit in the world. It made me feel that there indeed is “Hope” that children of India will one day once again shine and shine with great splendor so long as people and volunteers are there.

I am planning to write in detail about visit for our local ethnic weekly, but in the meanwhile please accept my congratulations and my personal thanks from the bottom of my heart for all what was done for me to make my visit a fruitful one with first hand on site experience with what goes on with such a great facility. It indeed was a combination of true ingenuity, sense of purpose, desire to serve and efforts to raise funds as well as love for country we call mother India.

Dr. Jaswant S. Sachdev, MD

As part of their CSR activities, Microsoft sponsors a week long programme called The Giving Campaign to encourage employee participation.  As part of this, a group of volunteers visited the Akshaya Patra kitchen in Pathancheruvu, Andhra Pradesh, on 24 November 2011.  Some of them have reverted with vignettes of their experience at the kitchen and the schools thereafter.  We publish a few extracts below:

“It was a great experience visiting Akshaya Patra at Pathancheruvu and serving Mid-day Meals to the children of Zilla Parishad School in Shivanagar.  It gave me an insight into the great work that Akhaya Patra does as an organization by providing mid-day meals to under privileged children.

The Zilla Parishad School has three sections (lower, middle and upper primary) and provides education to around 350 students. The Giving Campaign gave me an opportunity to spend time with the children, know their world, bring smiles to their faces and play with them. Serving food to them gave me immense inner satisfaction.

After serving them meals we had an interactive session with them which helped us to understand their aspirations. Some wanted to become doctors, while others wished to be engineers, policemen or teachers. Spending time with them brought back our own childhoods to us.   We left determined that it is our responsibility to give back to society and help at least a few students achieve their dreams.”

Nehali Sahu

I am coordinating the Giving Campaign for the second year and when I started working for this programme, I was confident that I do not need to search for volunteers. I was right! We had them in abundance because serving food to children was so appealing. We received all the required support from the Giving Core team, and on November 24, 2011 we undertook our journey to the kitchen where we witnessed the most hygienic way of preparing and packing food.

Click here to view the photo gallery.

We also visited three nearby schools which had a combined strength of about 400 kids. They are among the 37,500 children who benefit from this programme every day.  Very often we do not understand the importance of food and how it is interlinked with education. After spending a day with the children I am able to understand that no child can study if s/he is hungry.

We ensured that all volunteers spent some quality time after serving food either through interactions with the kids or by engaging them in some sports activity.  Most of the volunteers said that this event was the most memorable event they had in a long time. I hope they will continue and strive to make a difference to society.”

Raghu Nandan Pyapili, Application Engineer, MSIT-India

A thought similar to this would run across anyone’s mind when they see a horde of young children, in their blue uniforms, run with their plates to the lunch area in the Government Higher primary school in Thalaghata, Bangalore. The impatience they exuded implied that they were all hungry. The importance of a freshly-cooked, nutritious meal served in a school, attended mostly by underprivileged children, can be derived by just visualizing the eagerness in which the children waited to fill their plates, eventually their stomachs.

Several such examples can be found appraising the success of the Government’s mid-day meal programme. The enthusiasm, realization and contentment with which children eat the Akshaya Patra meal complement the benefits and the success of the programme.

By: Angela

Far away from my country, I haven’t thought I whether I could change myself or not, or change others. We live in Dharward’s city centre. This is a city which only have a highway road cross. There is no entertainment, only can find some shops and banks. I think it as a country side. Everyday we go to work and back to the homestay, bored and pale.

One day we have a chance to visit a village school. There, green tree and red earth makes a shock eyes. Women, children and the olds stay in the village. We arrived the school, it’s not big. There’s a playground in front of the classroom and children play on it.

When we got off the car, children crowed with great curiosity and more and more children came to us. Brown skin, black hair, big eyes, it’s my impression. Everything is the same but big smile made a deep memory. They both don’t speak English, but they eager to talk with us. We can communicate with each other only with few sentences like what’s your name and where are you from. To our surprise, they know Jacky Chen and KengFu!!! How can they know that!?

After they saw our camera, they are excited. They really show their longing to take a photo. We are so moving, for their sincere. Maybe they will stay here for whole life, maybe we are the few foreigners they have seen, and maybe after seeing us let them know the great world, let them know that there are many different countries people living in the same world. Maybe we made their have new ideas about the world and life. Whatever, even we can change little, but we actually make a change.

In the month, I have doubted the meaning about this summer, I have complained the boring job, I have felt sad about everyday is the same’ s life. However, in the end, I think we find the truth that why we are in India this summer. The world is changed by us, even is a small blog on the internet, even is some quick glance, even is only 480 hours stay.

Read More: http://mealsforanoblecause.blogspot.com/

http://lunchplan.blog.163.com/

http://blog.sina.com.cn/mealsforeducation

Early morning 6 o’clock and Akshaya Patra’s Mysore kitchen is bustling with activity. Having started more than an hour ago, it is in full swing with teams of employees working harmoniously in the various responsibilities assigned. Some supervise steaming cauldrons capable of cooking 100kgs of rice each. Others focus on masala preparations near a massive stone grinder whirling at steady speed where more than 60 coconuts are grated each day for seasoning. Yet others are involved in measuring out the quantities of ghee, oil and other ingredients needed for cooking.

Assigning those responsibilities and superintending the overall operations is Srikanth S. K. He has been working with the Foundation for nearly 1 ½ years and handles the day to day processes of the kitchen.

“We use between 200 to 300 kgs of rice, 230 kgs of dal and around 650 to 700 kgs of vegetables everyday,” says Srikanth. He goes on to explain how each school is visited approximately once in two months, and the feedback collected is used to make adjustments to the cooking process. “Today, we’re making tomato bath*. We received feedback that the children wanted something different to taste,” he adds, carefully watching to ensure that exactly 4.5 kgs of ghee and 8 litres of oil are measured out in equal quantities for each cauldron.

“It is great satisfaction to know that the work I do is helping children,” he says.

*Tomato bath is a rice preparation with a strong flavouring of tomato, enhanced with spices and cooked with vegetables.

“We do all the work that needs to be taken care of,” says Narayana Murthy of his responsibilities in the kitchen. “Everyone supports everyone else and we do what needs to be done.”

After helping with the actual cooking process, where his work involves rice cleaning, supervising steaming cauldrons of boiling rice and vegetable preparation, Narayana is busy loading steel containers packed with hot meals into waiting food vans. Feedback taken from schools every day tells him exactly how many containers need to be packed in each vehicle.

An hour later and he has changed from the rich blue kitchen uniform to the khaki brown outfit of a driver. All the food vans are neatly packed and ready for delivery.

There are five routes covering all the schools that Akshaya Patra reaches out to in Mysore.* Each one comprises of approximately 14 to 15 schools. The route that Narayana will drive has 14 schools. “We’ve mapped out the schools for each route. The steel containers are packed in the order that the schools are located on a route,” he explains.

On the lid of every container is the route number itself, followed by each school’s assigned number for the route. This numbering system makes it easier for them to keep track of every school’s requirements.

“We always know exactly how much food each school asked for. Once we make the delivery, we also ask the teachers what they may need for the following day. This feedback is then given to the supervisors so that there is never any shortage at any school.”

*As of February 2011

“No matter what happens, we have to deliver food to all schools on time. No matter what,” says Someshekara. Though it is no easy task serving freshly cooked food to more than 17,000* children everyday, he helps Akshaya Patra’s Mangalore kitchen meets its high standards through constant supervision and strict adherence to a timeline.

Highly energetic and diligent, there is very little that passes by in the kitchen without Someshekara’s notice. From making sure that every employee is wearing his or her hairnet and gloves, to ensuring that all the vessels are thoroughly cleaned, he attends to the smallest details of kitchen operations. He receives feedback from the inspection head to make sure that the right amount of food reaches all schools.

With two years of experience in the Bangalore kitchen and another two in Mangalore, Someshekara is well versed in the dynamics of managing people and running operations on a day to day basis. He has very strong belief on the type of employees who meet the Foundation’s criteria.

“What we want above all at Akshaya Patra,” he says, “are people who are dedicated. And then, neatness. Neatness is very important.”

His work gives him a great sense of satisfaction, he says. “Many people in our Mangalore kitchen, especially the ladies, are here simply because we serve children. They’re not here out of necessity. We all work very hard. Everyone has to contribute and help everyone else out. That’s very important,” he says with pride.

“Safety and hygiene is very important,” he says. “They insist on it at Akshaya Patra. We work with steam at very high temperatures. And that is risky. We have to be very diligent.”

*As of March 2011