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.

An Ideal Mid-Day Meal for School Children

An estimate from the World Health Organization (WHO) shows that nearly 1.2 billion people in the world are poor.  Poverty is a huge issue in India too. The Indian economy is growing fast, but the nation is still to wipe out poverty completely from its soil. Poverty has a huge impact on people’s lives, especially for children. With no income to even have a basic meal a day children are forced to work to help supplement the family income. Thousands of children in the country miss out their education to support their family. Interestingly, there has been an improvement in this phenomenon since 2000, when The Akshaya Patra Foundation, an initiative founded with the motive that ‘No child in India shall be deprived of education because of hunger’ came into existence.  Akshaya Patra’s mid-day meal scheme which was kicked off with just 1,500 school children, at present, covers over 1.4 million Government school students in India.

This NGO in India, through all these years, has been working hard to ensure that underserved school children get all the calories, proteins, minerals and vitamins needed to excel in studies and succeed in life. Akshaya Patra’s mid-day meal provides all the necessary nutrition needed for a healthy growth in childhood.

The organisation owes a large part of its success to its donors. The mission of The Akshaya Patra Foundation, now, is to reach out to 5 million children by the year 2020.

Today’s children are tomorrow’s citizens. Your contribution can help us build a healthy and smart society. To support out the programme, join us and give your contribution to feed more children and to remove hunger among children.

To know more how you can be part of Akshaya Patra, visit Get Involve.

Impact of Akshaya Patra’s mid-day meal: Looking into children’s lives

As we go deeper into the lives of the beneficiaries of Akshaya Patra, we learn how important the mid-day meal programme is in their lives. Let’s meet a few children to grasp the impact that the foundation’s effort is making.

First is Rahim, a hard-working student who dreams to be a doctor. He loves science and wants to a doctor so he can save lives. His father is an auto driver while his mother works as a housewife. To support the family, his mother does a few odd jobs. Despite the challenging financial state of the family, Rahim works hard in class and it has reflected in his marks. When free he plays and reads and also helps his mother in house chores. Rahim loves the dal (lentils) and fruits provided by The Akshaya Patra Foundation as part of the mid-day meal serve to his school every day. He compliments the service of the organization to society.

Another beneficiary we met was Rajesh who is fond of literature and loves to draw. His teachers are very impressed with his artistic skills and think that a formal coaching will help develop his talent further. And Rajesh wants to be a teacher. He thinks that mid-day meal programme really helps the families of children studying at the same school. He is grateful to the programme.

Now Pithali, studying in 4th grade, hopes to become an actress in Assamese movies and travel the world with her family one day. Her father, a seasonal mason sometime is without work for as long as 4-6 months. And her mother stitches mekhala chadars (a traditional Assamese outfit). A monthly income of INR 2500 - 4000 is difficult to sustain a family of five. So, the food provided by Akshaya Patra at her school is a great incentive to Pithali. She looks forward to Wednesdays and Saturdays when pulao, khichdi and kheer are served. They are her favourites.

Just imagine if these children are not provided nutritious meals every day. Their education will be affected and so will their dreams and aspirations. That is the reason why the mid-day meal programme of Akshaya Patra is really vital to the children. The food gives them the much needed nutrition for their healthy growth. When children are well fed, they get the energy to focus on education and pursue their dreams. The mid-day meal is also an effort to eliminate classroom hunger in India.

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The Akshaya Patra Foundation is a non-governmental organization headquartered in Bengaluru. The NGO in India is feeding the government school children through mid-day meal programme every working day of school.

Communications, Awards and Akshaya Patra

The Akshaya Patra Foundation, as it expands and grows needs to develop itself as a good storyteller. Why you may ask? The answer is Akshaya Patra is an NGO working with many stakeholders. Trustees, advisors, donors, philanthropists, corporates, well-wishers, Government of India and the State Governments, general public, teachers and most important children are parts of what make Akshaya Patra. The onus to share and build trust, to get support by being transparent about the organisation lies with the organisation. Keeping up with new trends and making content and creative exciting have brought good results besides generating awareness. It has won accolades and awards for the Akshaya Patra.

Recently The Akshaya Patra Foundation won Silver in the Summit Creative Awards (SCA) 2015 for its Annual Report 2013-14. It’s for the third consecutive time Akshaya Patra has won silver. Moreover this year Akshaya Patra received Gold for a film called ‘The Possibilities’ which projects the essence and importance of the core activity of the organisation at SCA. The award is to honour small and medium sized agencies for their contributions to advertising.

The entries are judged by experts who evaluated one against others in their category. This makes it a though competition, where the winner truly stands out.

This award is one of the achievements The Akshaya Patra Foundation has been honoured with. Without good communication principles and plan it’s not achievable. The idea is to use facts and figures as the real content accentuated by creative presentation that makes it appealing to the audience.

As the organisation strives hard to expand and feed more children, the need to educate and inform the people is of utmost importance to garner support to sustain and achieve its goal. The determination and commitment to generate healthy communication have resulted in major achievements besides bringing the desired intent of bringing awareness and the support needed for Akshaya Patra to keep working towards its mission of feeding 5 million children by 2020.

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Bollywood Star Ranveer Singh campaigns for Akshaya Patra!

Since inception in June 2000, Akshaya Patra has seen involvement of people from all walks of life towards the noble cause of feeding children. Akshaya Patra always provides a platform for existing supporters as well as invites new supporters to get involved in nation building through feeding the young hearts. Over the years of implementing the mid-day meal programme, Akshaya Patra has witnessed that each meal has its own story and each beneficiary has his or her own special dream. Thus the Foundation has always thrived to provide quality, hygienic and tasty mid-day meal each day to each of the beneficiaries.

Currently, Akshaya Patra is operational in 24 locations of 10 states. Each day, Akshaya Patra feeds mid-day meal to more than 1.4 million children across Government schools. It aims to feed 5 million children by 2020. The task indeed is humongous but not unattainable. Working towards the mission, Akshaya Patra welcomes participation from each member of the country. The participation could be in the form of skill, time, funds, awareness creation or even volunteering. The recent partnership with Ching’s Secret is an exemplary one as it has brought in Ranveer Singh, the Brand Ambassador of Ching’s Secret and popular Bollywood Star to campaign for Akshaya Patra.

Ranveer has been actively involved in the planning and execution of the campaign called 'India Ke Hunger Ki Bajao'. The campaign aims to feed at least 1 million children across the country. Ranveer’s sincere support towards the children was witnessed as he offered his support to 10,000 children and sponsored their mid-day meals for an entire year at the launch of the campaign. Along with Akshaya Patra beneficiaries as Ranveer appeals in this video it just takes 10 seconds and a minimum amount of Rs. 750 to feed a child for an entire year. This amount has the potential to nourish and change the life of millions of young citizens. The campaign will receive broadcast in television, radio and digital platforms. It is also being supported by well-known brands like Yash Raj Films, India TV, Red FM, Reliance Fresh, Patel Bros., Paytm, Choitrams and Fluence.

Managing Director of Capital Foods (Ching's Secret's parent company), Ajay Gupta opines that it’s time to give back to the society and education of children will definitely lead to a better future of the country. Ranveer Singh too adds that he loves kids and being able to be involved with the cause of Akshaya Patra gives him immense joy. He believes that being the role of Indian youth, he will be able to spread the message and bring in maximum participation for the cause.

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Akshaya Patra Foundation Indian NGO ranked 23rd among Top 100 NGOs

In the Annual Ranking of NGOs by The Global Journal, the Indian NGO- The Akshaya Patra Foundation has been ranked 23rd among the Top 100 NGOs in the world. The Global Journal considered a pool of approximately 450 NGOs from across the world working for various causes. There were three key criteria based on which the ranking was done. They are: impact, innovation and sustainability.

A unique content media platform- The Global Journal provides in-depth coverage of global governance issues. In this ranking Akshaya Patra shares apace with many other reputed NGOs in India and abroad like BRAC, MSF, Path and the like.  This ranking has further boosted the level of motivation and confidence of the Foundation to work towards the children in India. The Foundation provides mid-day meal to Indian children studying in Government schools and Government-aided schools. Children in India who are in need of support is benefitting doubly out of this mid-day meal. First, these children are receiving one wholesome and nutritious meal everyday.  Second, they are able to continue their education and also concentrate better in their academics.

Studies show that there are millions of children in India who need to earn for their own meal at a tender age. Due to this, these children are unable to go to school for formal education. At this situation mid-day meal acts a breather for these children and their parents too. Mid-Day Meal Scheme is a Government initiative and under the aegis of the Government many NGOs in India implement the same in different areas. Akshaya Patra is one such NGO in India.

Headquartered in Bangalore- India, The Akshaya Patra Foundation has been implementing the mid-day meal programme since 2000. 12 years of tireless efforts has increased the Foundation’s reach to 9 states of India. Currently it is operating the programme in 19 locations and providing food to 1.3 million children in India. It has had a major impact in increasing school enrolment, sustaining attendance and bettering performance of the children. It employs some of the most innovative technologies in it’s kitchens for improved efficiency while preparing the meals. It aims at reaching out to 5 million children in India by 2020.

You too can be a part of this mission of the 23rd ranked Indian NGO. Join The Akshaya Patra Foundation today. 

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