The main focus of Integrated Child Development Scheme (ICDS) is to provide nutritious and balanced diet to underprivileged children. ICDS had conducted ‘Nutrition Week Celebration’ and ‘Iodine Awareness Programme’ at Namakkal, Tamil Nadu, which was inaugurated by District Collector- D. Jagannathan.

Collector D. Jagannathan began his speech by stating- “It is the duty of mothers to feed their babies with nutritious diet for the babies to lead a hale and healthy life,” He went on to add- “Every one should know that nurturing a child in a healthy manner is not an easy task, but it is necessary to make children not only good students but also healthy children, for which they need a nutritious and balanced diet”.

Interestingly, The Akshaya Patra Foundation shares similar sentiment, and is actively working towards achieving Millennium Development Goals. With the vision of “No child in India shall be deprived of education because of hunger”, Akshaya Patra is working towards eliminating child hunger and increasing literacy quotient among the children of the underprivileged section.

Set foot in June 2000, by feeding 1500 children in 5 schools of Bangalore, as a part of the mid-day meal program; today it has reached a commendable 1.3 million children across India. Currently, Akshaya Patra operates in 19 locations, across 9 states of India, and covers 9,075 schools to provide freshly cooked meal to the children on all school days. It was a milestone achievement for Akshaya Patra, as the Foundation served its billionth meal in August 2012. It aims to reach out to 5 million children by 2020.

Speaking on the occasion of celebrating the billionth meal, the founding member of Akshaya Patra, Mohan Das Pai maintained that “this organization is the only one of its kind that does not want to exist in future because it envisions a future that does not require it.” This not only inspired the audience but also reinstated the mission in a more profound manner.

Come forward and join hands with The Akshaya Patra Foundation. Be the reason for a hunger free and educated tomorrow.

Reference: The Hindu, 5^th November 2012

When you track conversations on blogs, forums, and social networks in India, evidently yet surprisingly you find many discussions are related to social development. These discussions are also criticisms directly from the general public on various issues, policies and implementation. It is profound knowledge when one gets an opportunity as an organisation to find out that there are more people that are worried about a cause you are striving to work for. When we see that the people on these platforms discuss about mid day meals scheme, education, hunger and children; a non-profit like Akshaya Patra is overwhelmed.

 We come across many such discussions on various forums these days and such discussions do instil our faith and helps us make arduous efforts to reach our goal. It is a confirmation to us that people know about Akshaya Patra and that they are spreading our message. This link will take you to one such brainstorm that we hope occurs every where as by such forums, not only people get to know about Akshaya Patra but also many more NGO’s and individuals get into the groove and take on issues that is really threat to India today. Hunger, infant mortality, education to name a few…

The following was a comment by Mr. Karthikeyan A on LinkedIn about Akshaya Patra.

“The best Public Services are available in Finland and even their schooling system is praised all over the world, We also know their innovation capabilities through some brands like Nokia, Kone ….etc

In both Sweden and Finland, free school meals are offered to all pupils. This practice has been in place since 1948 in Finland, and was introduced to Sweden in 1973.

India 

The Midday Meal Scheme is a school meal programme in India. 120 million children are covered under the Midday Meal Scheme in India, making it the largest school lunch programme in the world. Originally only in the states of Tamil Nadu and Gujarat, it has now been expanded to all parts of India after a landmark decision by the Supreme Court of India on November 28, 2001.

The Akshaya Patra Foundation runs the world’s largest NGO-run midday meal programme serving freshly cooked hot meals to over 1.2 million underprivileged children in 8 states of India. Akshaya Patra works with part subsidies from the government and partly by donations from individuals, philanthropists and corporates. Through Akshaya Patra, it takes only $31 to feed 2 children for a whole year.

The scheme involves provision of lunch free of cost to school-children on all working days. The key objectives of the programme are to protect children from hunger and malnutrition, increasing school enrolment and attendance, improved socialisation among children belonging to all castes, and social empowerment by providing employment for women. Due to the immense cost of catering for so many schoolchildren and the rapid growth of the poor sending their children to school, the government has raised funding for the programme from Rs. 3010 crore to Rs. 4813 crore (Rs 48 billion, $1.2 billion USD) in 2006-2007 ……”

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