“The history of all times, and of today especially, teaches that … women will be forgotten if they forget to think about themselves.” – Louise Otto

Annually, March 8 is observed as International Women’s Day to celebrate women’s economic, political, and social achievements throughout history. While the same is observed across the world, many women are of the opinion that there need not be a designated day to celebrate their courage and strength.

Women’s Day is meant to spread awareness about the progress women have made over the years. It’s always good to spread the word about someone’s achievements as they then inspire thousands of others; point in case the inspiring story of Malala Yousafzai, the Pakistani teenager who braved terror to fight for female education.

There is no dearth of such inspirational stories. Take, for instance, the story of American tennis player, Billie Jean King, who fought for equal pay in the sport, or Rosa Parks, whose refusal to vacate her seat became a symbol of the Civil Rights Movement in the United States.

Then there were women like Hellen Keller, who campaigned for deaf and blind people after losing her hearing ability and sight at the age of 19, and Margaret Thatcher, who defied all odds to become the first female Prime minister of Great Britain.

Names like Maria Sharapova, Saina Nehwal, and Mary Kom, who have taken the sporting world by storm, need no introduction. Then there are the likes of Sheryl Sandberg, COO of Facebook; Chanda Kocchar, CEO of ICICI Bank, Marissa Mayer, CEO of Yahoo!, etc., who have made it big in the corporate world. Each of these women—and many more like them—have inspired thousands of others to achieve what they want to.

Back home, we have a whole list of inspiring women; Rani Laxmibai, Savitribai Phule, and Annie Besant being some of them. Also, there are women who dedicated their entire life for a cause. One apt example of the same is Mother Theresa, a selfless nun who served people with HIV/AIDS, tuberculosis, etc., throughout her life.

You don’t need to look beyond your surroundings to find women who are putting in great deal of efforts to ensure that things are smooth; your mother or wife, or maybe your colleague. In fact, we at Akshaya Patra are surrounded by these superheroes who work tirelessly to bring about smiles on children’s face.

You yourself must have looked up to some of these women for inspiration. If you have, we would like to know who was your inspiration and why. You can share it with us here or on Facebook. Like we said earlier, it’s important that the remarkable achievements of these women reach out to the whole world as their stories have the potential to inspire.

Every year on 26 January India ardently gears up to celebrate its Republic Day with invigorated zeal and honour to mark the evolution of a ‘Republic India’ from British hegemony. The flavour of the day is showcased by royal parades, spectacular aerobatics by Indian fighter jets showcasing cultural wealth, martial supremacy and sky soaring patriotic fervour. It is a day of celebration for every Indian as Indian citizens unitedly celebrate this day by putting cultural and communal differences in their backseat.

But in the midst of festivity and gala we often become oblivious of the fact that though we have attained sovereignty there are certain teething challenges in India that have been a concern for the nation since its inception. One such challenge is food insecurity leading to poverty and malnutrition. The day food insecurity will cease to prevail in India; citizens will witness a new dawn of a truly republic and welfare India.

Hence recognising the importance of eradicating hunger and malnutrition, we at the Akshaya Patra family since 2000 have made continual strides to feed as many children we can through our Mid-Day Meal Programme. We humbly started with feeding 1500 children and today we are feeding 1.58 million children every day across India.

Akshaya Patra truly believes that on this Republic Day we all should become catalysts of change to build resilience against hunger so that our children do not face food insecurity. We strongly urge every individual to associate with our humanitarian cause and donate towards feeding more vulnerable and undernourished children so that with your support and contribution we can march towards our mission “to feed 5 million children by 2020”