International Mother’s Day, celebrated on 10th May, marks a day to pause and acknowledge the crucial role that mothers play in shaping our family, community and country. At Akshaya Patra mothers play a vital part in the organisation’s philosophy, and the Foundation works to support them in numerous ways.

Akshaya Patra provides employment to over 2,200 women across the organisation. In the two decentralised kitchens alone the Foundation employs almost 1,500 women from self-help groups in the region. By providing equal opportunity for growth and development, regardless of gender, Akshaya Patra has provided an avenue for these ladies to become financially independent, improve their social standing within their community and they also serve as a positive example to their children.

Through the daily mid-day meal programme Akshaya Patra also helps to ease the mother’s burden of providing daily nutritious food to her child. Very often the beneficiaries of the programme are the children of the ladies employed within the kitchens. This has provided an opportunity for the mothers to prepare the tasty, nutritious food for their very own children, and ensure the children stay enrolled in school to get educated.

Jeeku Behn, mother of young Bharwad Gopal Hamili Bhai from Gujarat says, “The mid-day meal programme has made our life easier since all my four children are beneficiaries of this scheme. Most of our dinners are just a Bajri roti and Mirchi (Indian bread made of millet consumed with chilies). My children go to school with a glass of milk in the morning since it’s not possible to give them nutritious food with vegetables and pulses. It is difficult for us to afford such a meal every day.”

The Foundation also knows how important it is for mothers to have access to nutritious food too, especially during pregnancy and after. To support them during this time, Akshaya Patra provides healthy food filled with vitamins to almost 6,000 mothers across nearly 300 Anganwadi centres in India every day.

L. Kumari, a beneficiary of the Anganwadi programme, expressed her happiness over being provided fresh and nutritious food every day right from her pregnancy. “The doctor too has confirmed that my son and I are very healthy. We got to eat varieties of vegetables rich with vitamins and proteins which we can’t afford,” she said.

The secret recipe to Akshaya Patra’s food is that it is cooked with the love and care of a mother to her child. In celebration of this and mothers everywhere, Akshaya Patra made a short film ‘A morsel of love‘ showcasing real mothers from the kitchens preparing food for the young beneficiaries.

If you would like to help us support more mothers and their children, click here.

To quote Spiderman, “With great power comes great responsibility.”

Mankind is on the pinnacle of advancement, with breakthroughs in science and technology happening every day. These developments have given us power, but we have a responsibility to wield this power with caution.

Today with earth’s resources strained more than ever before, humanity is coming together to reverse the negative impact development has had on our planet. On Earth Day, let’s take a moment to see how we as responsible citizens can contribute on an individual, community and organisation level to saving planet Earth.

• Save water: We all waste water in different ways. Sometimes we leave the water running while washing dishes or never get around to fixing the leaking faucet. These oversights that we think will make no difference have a huge impact in combination with the global population. Saving water in your home or office means more water for your community, and every little bit counts.
  At Akshaya Patra a technology to treat effluents called Porous Sulpha Sponge (PSS) has been identified. This technology is under consideration to be adopted in the kitchens.
• Reduce air pollution: Smog and dust have become a regular part of our lives. But we can reduce their impact by taking a few basic steps like planting more trees, using environment friendly ways of commuting like walking or cycling and using less electricity to reduce burning coal and natural gas.
  Using data analytics Akshaya Patra reduced the number of meal delivery routes by five, lowering the fuel consumption and vehicle emission each month.
• Manage waste better: Try and reduce your home or office waste by purchasing products that are reusable and composting waste food scraps to nourish your backyard or garden. This waste can also be used to generate power for your home or office.
  Taking into account the huge amounts of waste generated, Akshaya Patra’s Vasanthapura (Bangalore) and Vadodara (Gujarat) kitchens have installed BioUrja plants. In Bangalore the compact bio-waste to energy system has enabled the kitchen to generate fuel worth 70 cylinders a month. In Vadodara the plant takes care of 1/3rd of the LPG needs of the kitchen at less than five per cent of the current recurring cost.
• Reduce your energy usage: There are many ways to reduce your energy consumption. Some of these are to fit your home or office with solar panels to run your basic electric needs, use energy efficient appliances, and replace or clean air filters on time in your air-conditioner or heater to avoid them working overtime.
  The Vasanthapura kitchen has also had a solar plant installed which produces up to 70 units of power a day. This energy is used to power applications like fans, computers and other basic systems.

These steps can be implemented even on a mediocre scale in any home or office. If each one of us make these small changes to take care of our planet, we will soon see Mother Earth thriving once more.

Do you have any eco-friendly tips to share? Let us know by commenting below.