Enter a child’s mind, find their dream, and guide the mind to its destination – a trail created by Akshaya Patra’s initiative ‘Giving Every Dream a Chance.’ When a child begins to dream to achieve something in the future, it becomes an orbiting thought with zero restrictions. However, when they are made to take a step back due to their economic conditions, they lock their aspirations in the mind itself. What children need at this point is immense support from the society, a great boost to dream fearlessly and an assurance that dreams do come true.

With a belief that every dream deserves an opportunity, The Akshaya Patra Foundation has launched a project ‘Giving Every Dream a Chance’ to support the dreams of every child. This initiative will not only encourage the little minds to dream but will also act as a guiding star in getting a step closer to the dream. As a pilot project, three Akshaya Patra beneficiaries from Bengaluru went through a successful mentorship programme under the guidance of an expertise from their field of interest. Their stories highlight why it is important to give every child’s dream a fair chance.

Shivu, a 14-year-old Akshaya Patra beneficiary, is fascinated by stars—a topic that makes our mind absolutely curious. Well, this curiosity is a driving force for Shivu to achieve his dream of becoming an astronomer. Akshaya Patra’s initiative laid the runway for his dream by providing a mentorship programme under the guidance of Ms Preeti Krishnamurthy, Senior Research Fellow in Astrophysics. During his mentorship, Shivu got an opportunity to have a closer look at the sky and study the celestial objects.

Shekar built his dream of becoming a chef while helping his mother cook in the kitchen. To help him experience his dream, Akshaya Patra turned the 14-year-old boy’s dream into an opportunity by charting a month-long mentorship programme, where he developed his skills under the watchful eyes of Chef Ramasamy Selvaraju of the Vivanta By Taj.

Manjula, an aspiring actress, is a star in her own right. What the 14-year-old girl needed was an expertise to polish her acting skills into a powerful one. That happened when Akshaya Patra decided to elevate Manjula’s dream by enrolling her in a month-long acting mentorship programme at the Bangalore School of Speech and Drama under the guidance of its Founder-Director, Dr. Zulfia Shaikh.

After the successful launch of the initiative, The Foundation now plans to stretch the initiative to multiple cities across the country. It is our understanding that with right guidance, children will be able to realise their dream and also develop their skills. Join Akshaya Patra on the journey where hundreds of children from across the country will be benefitting from the initiative ‘Giving Every Dream a Chance.’ To help children dream fearlessly, the focus continues to be hunger relief among school goers through nutritious mid-day meals. By contributing Rs. 750, you can feed a child for an entire year! To help us achieve this, donate here.

The ‘will’ to do something good is never an issue; lack of time is. At least, that’s what most of us have to say. If only there were 25 hours in a day, we wish. Imagine what wonders an extra hour could do. Alas, that’s not the case. The good news though, is that 2016 is a leap year, meaning we have a whole extra day for us. That’s as good as 24 extra hours in the year. So why not put them to good use?

Well, here are a couple of things you could do, which will help us big time in our initiative.

1. Like our Facebook page
How about starting off with the simplest thing, say like our Facebook page. It will only take a second or two from your valuable time and help us reach a wider audience.

2. Share our Facebook post
In doing so, you’ll carry our message to all your friends and loved ones.

3. Write a comment
We’d also like to hear what you want to say about our initiative. We do take Facebook comments seriously.

4. Follow Akshaya Patra on Twitter
If you are on Twitter, you should follow @AkshayaPatra and help us reach a wider audience.

5. Tweet/retweet about Akshaya Patra
Your tweeting and retweeting will help us make our presence felt on Twitter.

6. Tag your friends and loved ones on social media
We need more people onboard, so why not start with friends and loved ones of our friends and well-wishers?

7. Subscribe as social media volunteer
You can become a social media volunteer for us, like and share our Facebook posts, retweet and like our tweets, share our Youtube videos, etc. Click here

8. Spread the word about Akshaya Patra
The simplest way to contribute to our initiative is to spread the word in whichever way possible. So you don’t just need to restrict to social media; even word of mouth will take us a long way.

9. Subscribe to our newsletter
You’ll get a better idea about our cause if you know what we are doing on a regular basis, and the best way to know that, is to subscribe to our newsletter. Click here

10. Read our blogs/Write a guest blog
Our blogs are informative and inspiring; more often inspiring, because they bring to you the stories of our stakeholders. You can also guest blog for us. Click here

11. Watch our videos
If you are not a fan of reading, we have a compilation of some inspiring videos for you. Click here

12. Write a testimonial
If you have something good to say about Akshaya Patra, you can write a testimonial for us. Click here

13. Read and share children’s stories
A whole day with not much to do? You can spend some time reading beneficiary success stories. They are quite inspiring, mind you.

14. Browse Hope Stories
Visit our Hope Stories website where we have documented the stories of our beneficiaries, school teachers, parents, and others involved.

15. Donate to our cause
If you believe in our cause, you can simply opt to donate to it. Your donation will help us power over 1.5 million smiles. To donate, click here

16. Start a fundraiser
You can fundraise with us, or create a fundraising campaign to help us make a difference in the lives of children. Click here

17. Sponsor our events
You can sponsor one of the several events we organise to spread awareness about our initiative. Mail us at infodesk@akshayapatra.org

18. Design a banner or poster
If you are a graphic designer, you can put your creativity to good use and design a banner or poster for us. Mail us at infodesk@akshayapatra.org

19. Place our banners on your website
If you have a website or blog, you can simply place Akshaya Patra banner on it and help us spread the word.

20. Partner with us
If we are to fight issues like hunger and malnutrition in India, we need to work together. We’d like you to partner with us to fight for the cause.

21. Visit one of our kitchens
If you have an Akshaya Patra kitchen nearby, you can visit the same and see how food is cooked for thousands of children. Mail us at infodesk@akshayapatra.org

22. Volunteer with Akshaya Patra
If you are willing to lend a helping hand, we’ll be more than glad. You can just visit our volunteering opportunities page and browse the list.

23. Click a picture of our delivery van
If an Akshaya Patra delivery van is a familiar sight for you, you can just snap its picture and share it on social media.

24. Make a suggestion
If you have suggestions, we’d like to hear from you. We know we have a long way to go, so your suggestions are valuable for us. Mail us at infodesk@akshayapatra.org

So you have 24 options to choose from, none of which will take more than a day. In fact, most of them will only take a few seconds. The cumulative effect of your actions though, will definitely benefit millions of children.