Well-fed, well-read, well-achieved – that’s the kind of generation Akshaya Patra dreams of! And to make this dream come true, we started concerting all our efforts to support education by providing nutrition-rich mid-day meals since 2000.
The 18-year journey has been exciting and action-packed. With years of rich learning, the Foundation has evolved from serving 1500 mid-day meal to 1.8 million children in 16,856 schools across 12 states & 2 Union Territories of India. Take a closer look:
So, what inspires us to expand our reach more?
We feel immensely blessed to witness countless hope stories of children and their transformation in the past eighteen years. Today, Akshaya Patra’s beneficiary children along with their parents stand as motivating examples of the extraordinary change that mid-day meal programme is capable of bringing in their lives. We are humbled to be a part of their incredible journey.
This is one of the hope stories, which stirs our heart and inspires us to make new beginnings possible for children.
Introducing Muskan Salim Malik. She is a Standard VII Akshaya Patra beneficiary from Gujarat.
Muskan has always been keen on learning languages and aspires to be a professor someday. She feels grateful that in spite of the social stigma surrounding educating a girl child in her community; her father advocates and supports her schooling.
Expressing her concern, Muskan says, “Just because I attend school, we have had to face strong criticism from the elder members of my family. Indeed, my father has not surrendered and accepted the situation.” By becoming an academician, she wants to see her father’s head held high and be an example to other families who have daughters.
Muskan hails from a family of eight – mother, father, three sisters, two brothers and herself. Her siblings also study in the same school. She says, “It becomes tougher for my parents to arrange for wholesome square meals a day. So, I am indebted to Akshaya Patra, for providing us the tasty mid-day meals which I get to relish with my friends.”
Upholding the hope stories of children like Muskan, we try to make their aspirations achievable.
With thousands of hands reaching out to us in support of school children,
we strengthen our belief that together we can build a nation
where every child has an easy access to
‘unlimited food for education.’
