Being Responsible: The Akshaya Patra Foundation

Every minute is used seemingly well at The Akshaya Patra Foundation—an NGO in India which believes that no child should be deprived of education due to hunger. Since its inception, the organisation has endeavoured to end classroom hunger through mid-day meal programme, thus encouraging millions of children to attend school regularly. As a role of an NGO, it is now Akshaya Patra’s mission to feed 5 million children by 2020. It becomes extremely important to have donation for NGO and work towards our mission.

At The Akshaya Patra Foundation, it is a promise kept to feed a wholesome meal to the underserved children across many states. With an ever-growing dedication, The Foundation has been feeding nutritious meals to more than 1.5 million children in India every day. With generous support from the Government of India and State Governments and individuals’ donation for NGO, the Akshaya Patra vessel has been inexhaustible.

Feeding children has been The Foundation’s core function among many others. As a role of an NGO that implements mid-day meal programme, we started with five government schools in Bengaluru, feeding 1500 children. That was 15 years ago!  The overwhelming response from schools explained the need of the programme. Today, more than 11,000 schools are benefitting from this programme. The State Governments have partnered with The Akshaya Patra Foundation to implement the Mid-Day Meal Programme in order to increase the number of children they reach out to. This partnership has been instrumental in improving the quality and reach of the programme.

While it is an everyday task to serve millions of children, the organisation ensures quality in food and follows hygiene instructions strictly. Before and after the food is prepared, all the vessels in the kitchen are sanitised, fresh food is packed in steel containers and are delivered to schools at lunch time. During the entire process, the focus of Akshaya Patra continues to be children and their satisfaction in every mid-day meal—without a wholesome meal, it becomes a challenge for a child to sit in a classroom and learn. The Foundation ensures that meals contain sufficient nutrients and protein along with taste. An impact study by AC Nielsen in 2010 showed that mid-day meals helped in increasing school attendance, socialisation among children, and improvement in nutritional status and decrease in drop-out rate.

Apart from working towards countering hunger and malnutrition in school children, Akshaya Patra also has other feeding initiatives: Feeding Anganwadi children and women, expecting and lactating mothers, runaway children, residents at old-age homes, the homeless and many more. When the volume of work is high, so is the support. Akshaya Patra believes in being transparent to maintain trust—every year an Annual Report is published which discloses financial audits, number of beneficiaries, government grants and donations received and growth over the last years.

At The Akshaya Patra Foundation – an NGO in India, the unlimited food for education is transforming many young lives. The organisation has taken the responsibility of many children to safeguard them from hunger and lack of education—because every child has the right to live.