The year 2015-16 has been quite a special one for The Akshaya Patra Foundation. The organisation reached notable milestones, made new beginnings and received prestigious honours. The force behind the Foundation’s sustained momentum in serving the children of the nation, and its many achievements, is its dedicated workforce, toiling tirelessly behind the scenes, to serve its cause of ‘unlimited food for education’. The Akshaya Patra annual report for 2015-16 unmasks and celebrates these previously faceless entities.
Titled The Passioneers – Bound By Purpose. Driven By Passion, the report paints intimate portraits of people from the Foundation’s workforce, with beautifully done illustrations. These include stories of P Venkatesh in Ballari, who works as a driver, delivering Akshaya Patra’s food to the beneficiary schools; Meena Devi from Vrindavan, who cleans the crates, helps cut vegetables and cleans the dal. Then, there is Ved Prakash, who cleans the kitchen, the vessels and connectors in Vrindavan, along with handling many other processes. The annual report introduces us to many such employees, whose hard work and commitment has brought the organisation to its current position, where it stands tall and proud.
Having won numerous prestigious awards for its annual reports over the years, The Passioneers thus presents the organisation’s financials in its imaginative style. It reiterates the Foundation’s vision and mission of feeding 5 million children by 2020. Needless to say, it also includes the financial highlights for the year, accounting for every penny received by the Foundation, in a bid to maintain maximum transparency. Here are some important financials from the report:
The year 2015-16 saw the organisation reach significant milestones, the biggest being the serving of 2 billion meals since its inception. In the same year, its Chairman, Shri Madhu Pandit Dasa, was conferred India’s fourth highest civilian award – the Padma Shri. The report carries excerpts from an interview with him, where he speaks about receiving this prestigious honour and how it will provide an impetus to the Foundation. Looking forward, the organisation has numerous plans for the future, which are touched upon in the annual report. Among these are mobile kitchens or ‘kitchen on wheels’ for providing meals to disaster-affected areas, along with cluster kitchens in Uttar Pradesh and Hub & Spoke model kitchens.
The future looks very promising for Akshaya Patra. The Passioneers celebrates the tireless hands that hold up the Foundation and have been steadfast in their support over the years. Read all about them at Annual Report 2015-16.
