Akshaya Patra 5 time winner of SAFA award

Akshaya Patra has once again been felicitated for excellence in the area of financial accounting. The organisation has won the coveted SAFA Best Presented Annual Report Awards 2013 in the section of Non-Governmental Organizations (including NPOs) for excellent transparency and accountability as expressed in the Annual Report.

Akshaya Patra’s annual report was judged based on certain parameters like improvement in transparency, accountability and governance. The Foundation came first against all the competing countries of the SAARC region.

The award was handed over to Akshaya Patra at an award ceremony held in Bhubaneshwar and was accepted on behalf of the organisation by Achytya Krishna.

This is a proud moment for Akshaya Patra who is winning a SAFA award for the fifth year in a row. Previously in 2008-09 Akshaya Patra won a Certificate of Merit, in 2009-10 the Foundation was awarded the 2nd Runner up, in 2010-11 Akshaya Patra won the Gold Award and in 2011-12 received the Silver Award.

Chanchalapathi Dasa, the Vice-Chairman of The Akshaya Patra Foundation expressed his happiness over the award saying, “We are honoured to have received this prestigious award, SAFA Best Presented Annual Report Awards 2013. This is indeed a testimony to our adherence to the highest standards of governance philosophy and our continuous strive for excellence by adopting the best practices. The award encourages us to keep performing efficiently and ethically”.

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Hyatt Place Hampi awards Akshaya Patra with a grant!

To commemorate #GivingTuesday Hyatt Place Hampi (of the Hyatt Hotels Corporation) awarded The Akshaya Patra Foundation with a generous $15,000 USD grant to help Akshaya Patra move closer to fulfilling its vision that ‘no child in India shall be deprived of education because of hunger,’ and its mission of feeding 5 million children by 2020.

The grant was awarded to Akshaya Patra through the Hyatt Community Grants, a charitable undertaking of Hyatt Thrive, the company’s global corporate responsibility programme. The Hyatt Community Grants provides a platform for Hyatt employees to play an active role in philanthropy and contributing to improving the world around them. In fact, through Hyatt Thrive along with the assistance of 95,000 Hyatt employees across over 570 properties worldwide, Hyatt Hotels Corporation is focused on having a positive impact on the world.

The grant was presented to Akshaya Patra representatives – Sooraj Ravindran (Manager, Corporate Partnerships) and Chetan D (Manager-Operations, Bellary) – at the Hyatt Place Hampi by Sameeth Guha, General Manager; Debasish Shah, Executive Chef and Kanika Mehra, HR Manager of the hotel.

#GivingTuesday is a special day dedicated towards donating generously to those in need. For those of you who missed out on this day, you can contribute to Akshaya Patra online by making a donation in memory of someone. Choosing to donate in memory of someone allows you to honour the memory of a loved one who passed away, and keep their legacy alive. 

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Blog for change!

Not everyone is a born leader. Not everyone can go out there and fight battles to make change. But maybe you can use your words to make a difference in a child’s life. If you have something to say, some thoughts to share on how to eliminate classroom hunger in India, then this blogging contest is for you.

In collaboration with BlogAdda, The Akshaya Patra Foundation is running a blogging contest over four weeks ending on 14th December, 2014. The theme of the contest is ‘Tell us how you think we can eliminate classroom hunger. Imagine what India would be like if no child goes hungry and an entire generation is educated! Blog about it and make a difference with Akshaya Patra and BlogAdda.’

Each blog post must be a minimum of 300 words, and must be submitted by midnight of 14th December. Each blogger can submit a maximum of five entries. Are you wondering how participating in this contest will help you change the world? Well, for every blog entry BlogAdda will feed one Akshaya Patra beneficiary for an entire year!

Aside from this, The Akshaya Patra Foundation will choose the top five blog entries which will be featured as part of an exclusive series on the Akshaya Patra official blog, AND promoted via social media.

It doesn’t get better than this! Register now!

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Get set for Click a Smile 2014!

Akshaya Patra’s Click a Smile competition is back. Planned to be bigger and better, Click a Smile 2014, an annual photography competition for both professionals and amateurs will launch on Children’s Day, November 20th, 2014. The theme of the competition revolves around the smiles of children, and so participants must send in photographs of a smiling child (or children) from anywhere across India.

The Click a Smile competition will run for a month, till December 22nd. Participants will have to register for the competition from the Akshaya Patra website, where they can upload their photograph with a caption for judging.

The competition aims to celebrate children, and the natural joy they possess. Akshaya Patra works every day to provide underprivileged children with the nutrition they need so that they can retain their happiness and innocence in the world. Contestants must capture the joy behind the children’s smiles. They can photograph the children in any location – at home, at school, in playgrounds or the neighbourhood. The contestants can take (but are not restricted to) photographs of Akshaya Patra beneficiary children.

Last year the Click a Smile competition received over 700 entries of smiling children. This year Akshaya Patra aims to take the competition to the next level and hopes to receive many more entries from budding photographers. 

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Akshaya Patra begins Anganwadi feeding programme in Agra

 The Akshaya Patra Foundation inaugurated the Agra branch of its Anganwadi feeding programme on 14 October, 2014. The undertaking was flagged off by the Chief Guest District Magistrate of Agra, Pankaj Kumar; the Chief Development officer Paliwal N.K.; District Programme Officer and other dignitaries.

Akshaya Patra wins Gold at the 44th International Creativity Awards

 

The Akshaya Patra Foundation has won yet another coveted award for its Annual Report 2012-13.  The Foundation won the Gold award in the 44th Creativity International Print & Packaging Design Awards. Competing against thousands of entries sent in from over 32 countries and 22 U.S. states, this is indeed a proud moment for The Akshaya Patra Foundation.

Out of these thousands of entries fewer than 800 were chosen to be assessed by the judges. From this only 2/3rd were selected for an award. Of which 12 per cent of the entries, including Akshaya Patra, were chosen for the Gold award. These winners were those ten per cent of the scores not eligible for a platinum, but with an average score above 5.5. The design collateral is judged based on either their quality of art or advertising impact, or both.

The judges for this esteemed event are chosen every year on a rotational basis. These judges comprise of experts in the field of advertising and graphic design, who will be able to adequately analyse the challenges and triumphs of the design collateral. To maintain a fair judging environment, the panel of judges is selected from different regions, professional specialisations and agencies.

The purpose behind these awards is to ‘award and recognise great design from around the world.’ The annual report of The Akshaya Patra Foundation has been found to be worthy of this privilege, and is a great validation of the creativity, dedication to progress and evolutionary nature of the organisation.

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Driven to be a Doctor

Kalpana Malik may be just ten years old, but she already knows what she wants to be when she grows up. Her dream is to be a doctor someday. While that might seem like a common, frivolous ambition for a young child, Kalpana knows exactly why she wants to take up this noble profession.

"I would like to be a doctor because there is insufficiency of doctors to serve the patients," she says with confidence.

A standard V girl in the Vijayanagar Project Primary School in Puri, she is the youngest of four sisters. Her father is employed as a beach photographer and her mother takes care of the home.

Kalpana is a beneficiary of mid-day meals provided by The Akshaya Patra Foundation. With her characteristic exuberance she expresses her opinion about the food saying, “I love the food, and it’s always fresh and on time!"

Kalpana is whole-heartedly involved in the extra-curricular activities of her school, and especially excels in singing and dancing. She also loves to attend her classes and enjoys learning English in particular.

According to the teachers of Kalpana’s school, the Akshaya Patra mid-day meal is a predominant factor in inspiring children to enrol in school and attend classes regularly. Watching the energy and vibrancy that Kalpana exudes in her conversation and behaviour, we are thrilled to see the positive impact that the healthy meals have on her.

These beneficiaries of Akshaya Patra’s mid-day meal like Kalpana inspire us with their optimism, dreams and potential, and keep us striving to carry them through to success.

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President Pranab Mukherjee supports Akshaya Patra

 

In a thrilling development, the Honourable President of India, Pranab Mukherjee met with Madhu Pandit Dasa, Chairman and Chanchalapati Dasa, Vice-Chairman of The Akshaya Patra Foundation recently. In his discussions with the President, Madhu Pandit Dasa outlined the work and values of the Foundation.

The President in turn expressed his support and appreciation of the work undertaken by The Akshaya Patra Foundation. He expressed his best wishes to the organisation and hope that Akshaya Patra will succeed in its mission of eliminating classroom hunger, and enabling education throughout the country.

Madhu Pandit Dasa responded to the heartfelt support for The Akshaya Patra Foundation from the President of India saying, "We are very honoured to receive the support of The Honourable President, Sri Pranab Mukherjee. This is very crucial for us as we stride to scale-up to meet our mission of reaching five million children by 2020."

 The Akshaya Patra Foundation which started its journey in the year 2000 feeding just 1500 children across five schools, today feeds over 1.4 million children across 10,661 Government and Government aided schools, in 23 locations and 10 states of India.  With a vision that ‘no child in India shall be deprived of education because of hunger,’ Akshaya Patra constantly looks to the future to scale up its operations and provide food for education to every child in need. The organisation recently opened up two large-scale, highly mechanised, centralised kitchens; one at Cuttack, and the other at Ahmedabad.

If you would like to support The Akshaya Patra Foundation in its work to eliminate classroom hunger, click to donate online.

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Providing support through adversity

There are many children who cannot dream of attending school, not just because of they are underserved in terms of poverty, but also in terms of enabling facilities. Young Bhanuchander from Telangana is just one of the thousands of children in India suffering from Polio, which makes it impossible for him to walk.

His grandmother, who he calls Ammamma has taken care of Bhanu since he was born. Despite the fact that she suffers from asthma, Ammamma is committed to pushing Bhanu’s wheel chair to the school and back every day.

However there are days when she is too ill or weak to push Bhanu’s wheel chair to school, and he has to miss school. Bhanu’s uncle works as a daily wage earner, an uncertain occupation that on some days yields no money. On days when he does not manage to earn any income the family has to sleep on an empty stomach.

Bhanu especially because of his tender young age and physical ailments requires a steady supply of nutritious food to develop healthily. At school he is a beneficiary of the Akshaya Patra mid-day meal, which has proved to be a blessing for this small family. By eating the tasty, nutritious food every day, even Bhanu’s teachers have faith that he, like many others in the school, will be able to grow healthy and overcome the challenges they face.

Ammamma expresses her relief that Bhanu can reply on the Akshaya Patra mid-day meal saying, “My grandson is happy to go to school since he gets hot food, snacks and fruits also. I can't afford any of these constantly.” Aside from providing children like Bhanu healthy food to combat malnutrition, it also brings Akshaya Patra pleasure to help ease the burden from struggling, devoted family members like Bhanu’s  Ammamma.

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Engineering a way forward

Meghashree dreams of becoming a Software Engineer when she grows up. A studious, young girl of 15 years, she studies in Standard X at the Sharada Vilas High School in Mysore.

A new Akshaya Patra kitchen opens at Cuttack!

 

Staying focused on its aim to keep expanding and reach out to 5 million children by 2020, The Akshaya Patra Foundation has launched its 23rd kitchen at Cuttack in Odisha. This centralised kitchen was inaugurated by Naveen Patnaik, the Chief Minister of Odisha, as well as General Surat Singh Sandhu, the Chairman of The Kusuma Foundation and Pankaj Vinayak Sharma, Country Leader of The Kusuma Foundation.

An all-round healthy meal

Consuming a balanced diet is crucial for the healthy functioning of the human body. This is especially true for young children, whose bodies require the right amounts of nutrients and energy to develop both physically and mentally, and keep up with the rigour of childhood activity. The Akshaya Patra Foundation knows how vital the right amount of nutrients are to growing children and therefore adheres to the guidelines specified by the Government of India on the mid-day meal programme.

Vitamins and minerals are needed for the proper mental and cognitive development of these young children. In a time when their bodies are vulnerable, they rely on these nutrients to develop to their best potential. The Akshaya Patra Foundation provides these vitamins and minerals through beetroot, cabbage and carrot that are featured regularly in the mid-day meal.

Growing children should be starved of neither food nor energy. That’s why Akshaya Patra makes sure the children have both by providing them with sufficient carbohydrates, which help store energy in the body, through an adequate supply of rice in South India and Roti in North India to suit the local palate.

Proteins help in the physical development of the body, which makes them a crucial component in the diet of growing children. Akshaya Patra includes proteins in the mid-day meal through ingredients like spinach, potato, lentils and beans, which are frequently used in the menu.

The Akshaya Patra Foundation works to provide food for education, and combat the issue of classroom hunger in India. Through the mid-day meal, the beneficiaries of the programme have shown improved concentration, retention and energy, better socialization skills and a much higher drive to enroll in school. By ensuring that each meal is tasty, healthy and filling, The Akshaya Patra Foundation everyday comes closer to fulfilling its vision that no child in India shall be deprived of education because of hunger.

Donation process suited to your needs

Making a donation to The Akshaya Patra Foundation for the cause of food for education is a very simple process. All you need to know is how much you would like to donate, whether you are donating in cash or kind, and the reason for your donation.

Finding Strength in Unity

Jitu Pradhan studies in the fifth standard at the Sechan Bihar Primary School, Bhudan Nagar, Puri Municipality. According to him, his sister Buli Pradhan, is his best friend. Since Buli studies in the seventh standard of the same school, the two get to spend a great deal of time with each other, looking after each other and their home in Puri.

Akshaya Patra enters the North East

When The Akshaya Patra Foundation is choosing the location it should start its next kitchen in, it takes many different details into account. But one of the most important things the organisation analyses is the vital need for a new kitchen to be set up in that area.

Assam was one location that definitely needed the assistance that The Akshaya Patra Foundation could provide through the mid-day meal scheme. The state has been ravaged in the past by natural disasters which have caused many people to lose their homes, savings and security. There are thousands of children all over the state who have been unable to attend school in the face of driving concerns like food and shelter for the day.

Knowing how dire the situation is, the Government of Assam invited The Akshaya Patra Foundation to open a kitchen in their state. The free, nutritious and tasty mid-day meal was to provide an incentive for children to attend classes, and therefore increase school enrolment, attendance, and concentration while reducing dropout rates.

Akshaya Patra eagerly accepted this invitation from the Assam State Government and quickly put the wheels in motion to start their first kitchen in Assam, in Guwahati. However with the damages caused by the natural disasters in the region, there is limited infrastructure in terms of drinking water, drainage facilities and supply of electricity available. The Akshaya Patra Foundation therefore set up a reverse osmosis plant to provide clean drinking water, constructed adequate drainage facilities and set up generators to take care of the electricity problems.

Today the Assam unit feeds 53,649 children across 592 government schools through its centralised kitchen on every school day. This kitchen is ISO 22000:2005 certified and complies with Food Safety Management Systems and adopts best practices like Six Sigma and Kaizen; to ensure quality, hygienic and delicious food is sent out to the children benefitting from the programme.

The Akshaya Patra Foundation today feeds 1.39 million children across India every day. With a mission to serve 5 million by 2020, the Foundation needs all the help and support it can get. To make a donation toward this worthy cause click https://www.akshayapatra.org/onlinedonations

Strength in Small Packages

Appearances are often deceiving. Pooja at first seems like a shy child, but as conversation progresses she astounds you with her joy, creativity, and intelligence. An all-rounder of sorts, Pooja enjoys music and dance, taking part in various arts and cultural activities at her school, as well as participates whole heartedly in her academics. Her favourite subjects are Mathematics and English, and this bright young girl aims to become a teacher one day to pass on her knowledge.

The wisdom of youth

Very often, all the help in the world will not aid you if you do not help yourself. 12 year old Kavita, a young beneficiary of The Akshaya Patra Foundation mid-day meal, seems to be someone who subscribes to this concept. A student of the Chikkasandra Government Higher Primary School in Bangalore, Kavita is a smart young lady who dreams of being a respected, successful woman in the future.

Food and education: Two sides of a coin

In India, every child has the right to a quality, elementary education, and this right is fulfilled through the Right to Education Act provided under Article 21a of the Indian Constitution. This act provides for free and compulsory education to all children of India between the ages of six and 14. This act which has redefined the way children are treated and nurtured in this country came into effect on 1 April, 2010.

Akshaya Patra opens a new kitchen at Jodhpur

The Akshaya Patra Foundation is thrilled to announce the opening of its 22nd kitchen in Jodhpur, Rajasthan. Operational since August 2013, this centralised kitchen caters to a total of 12,139 school children across 147 government and Madrasa schools.

Here’s what you can do for Akshaya Patra!!

The Akshaya Patra Foundation is a people-centric organization. Apart from the fact that we are passionate about the work that we are doing, we would also love to involve as many people as possible.

An organisation that operates on such scale as Akshaya Patra, can only sustain its operation if there is whole hearted involvement of the community.

Akshaya Patra Foundation Raises the Bar

Having always been a loyal follower of the work done by The Akshaya Patra Foundation, I was thrilled when I found that the foundation has been receiving a spate of awards recently. Through their brochures and other communications collateral, and their high quality of work, Akshaya Patra’s communications model has always been very resource driven and target oriented, which is reflected in the various awards earned by their talented content and creative team.

Feeding women and children in Need

The Akshaya Patra Foundation brought their mid-day meal programme to Andhra Pradesh in October 2008, when they started their kitchens in Hyderabad and Visakhapatnam.  These centralised kitchens together serve 60,098 mid-day meals to 461 government schools every day.

Quiet and Confident they Carry On

When you walk through the gates of GHPS government school at Chikkasandra, Bangalore, around lunch time, the excitement in the air is palpable. As Akshaya Patra Foundation mid-day meals are served and children laughing and screaming fall into line, I look mesmerised into their smiling faces.

Snapshots of joy on a wall of hope

From the 10th to 12th of January, The Akshaya Patra Foundation hosted a photography exhibit titled ‘The Wall of Hope and Joy’ at the ‘Vismaya’ Rangoli Art Gallery, Metro Station, MG Road, Bangalore. Showcasing myriad photographs of children laughing, smiling, playing and positively bursting with exuberance, this photo exhibit was almost like the proverbial light at the end of the tunnel.

Karnataka: Ahead of the Curve

At The Akshaya Patra Foundation we have been striving towards realising our goal of feeding 5 million children across India by 2020, providing them with our tasty, nutritious mid-day meals so that no child need be denied education because of hunger.

Recently we were gratified to see our efforts reaping benefits when the Ministry of Human Resource and Development announced its first ever mid-day meals ranking of all the states that are part of the scheme, in a survey conducted across April to June, 2013.