Akshaya Patra’s Surat kitchen inaugurated

Akshaya Patra’s Surat kitchen was inaugurated on 15th February 2015 by Chielf Minister of Gujarat, Anandiben Patel. Along with her was Nanubhai Vanani, Minister of State (Primary, Secondary & Adult) and several other Government officials and dignitaries from the Surat Municipal Corporation (SMC) and the Oil and Natural Gas Corporation (ONGC).

This centralised kitchen by The Akshaya Patra Foundation has been sponsored by the SMC and ONGC. This highly mechanised kitchen has replaced the interim kitchen running in Surat from June 2012-14. The kitchen is equipped with a roti making machine, steam generation facility for cooking, seven stage rice cleaning machine, vegetable cutting machine and much more. The kitchen also has 41 customised meal delivery vehicles to carry the Akshaya Patra food to over 1.6 lakh children in the beneficiary schools.

When arriving at the Akshaya Patra kitchen in Surat, Anandiben Patel was greeted by the Vice Chairman of Akshaya Patra, Chanchalapathi Dasa. She inaugurated the kitchen by cutting the ribbon and taking part in the lighting of the lamp ceremony. The event included a kitchen tour, and flagging off the meal delivery vans.

After felicitating the donors of the kitchen Anandiben Patel addressed the media on the new Akshaya Patra kitchen. She and the other dignitaries also took part in serving the Akshaya Patra mid-day meal to some beneficiary students.

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Akshaya Patra Chairman Speaks at Development Dialogue 2015

Chairman of The Akshaya Patra Foundation, Madhu Pandit Dasa, spoke at the Development Dialogues 2015 conference held at the Deshpande Foundation in Hubli on 7th and 8th of February. The theme followed for the conference this year was ‘Scaling by Proving’.

The speakers of the conference tried to showcase how by ‘Failing Small, Failing Early, Failing Fast’, organisations can learn from their errors, take adjustments mid-way in their enterprise, form networks and put their processes in place that will help their organisations scale up quickly.

The conference had over 300 delegates including Kailash Satyarthi, Nobel Peace Prize winner 2014. In fact Madhu Pandit Dasa and the Akshaya Patra team had the opportunity to spend time with Mr. Satyarthi to discuss the mid-day meal programme and exchange ideas.

Madhu Pandit Dasa of Akshaya Patra shared the panel with Narayana Murthy from Infosys and Jeffrey L Bradach from the Bridgespan Group. The moderator of the panel discussion was Kasturi Rangan of Harvard Business School, USA.

Speaking on the panel Madhu Pandit Dasa responded to Narayana Murthy’s statement on the role of corporate partnership in initiating competition saying, “Currently Akshaya Patra has no competitor, but encouragement and the sharing of information will help others take up social entrepreneurship. Being a non-profit set-up, we are ready to pass on our functioning model.

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Infosys and Tata Group donate grant to Akshaya Patra

The charitable wings of Infosys (The Infosys Foundation) and the Tata Group (the Jamsetji Tata Trust) will be generously donating over Rs. 200 crore to The Akshaya Patra Foundation. The Infosys Foundation will be donating Rs. 127 crore to Akshaya Patra to help the Foundation construct and operate three new kitchens. In addition to this Infosys will be donating Rs. 20 crore for the corpus.

The Jamsetji Tata Trust will be donating Rs. 55 crore to Akshaya Patra to help the Foundation continue to improve its food safety management systems, and purchase the latest technology to achieve this.

The grant that Akshaya Patra receives from Infosys will be used to build a kitchen in Jodhpur that will feed up to 50,000 children a day, and another one at Hyderabad that will provide the Akshaya Patra mid-day meal to 100,000 children a day. Aside from this Infosys will also cover the operational costs of the kitchens in Hyderabad, Jodhpur and Mysore, and pay the costs for clean drinking water and mid-day meals to 1.5 lakh children in the state of Rajasthan. To top this off the grant gave Akshaya Patra the ability to adopt the closed-vessel cooking method that helps retain the fresh aroma of the food.

The Jamsetji Tata Trust will aid The Akshaya Patra Foundation by covering the expenses of hiring food safety inspectors in all the kitchens, and supporting the costs of the upcoming food labs in Ahmedabad, Bangalore, Bhubaneswar and Lucknow.

This generous support from these organisations will surely help The Akshaya Patra Foundation make strong strides in its fight to eliminate classroom hunger.

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Donate food for education in honour of your dear ones

‘Unlimited food for education’ is the motto of The Akshaya Patra Foundation. This Foundation is an Indian NGO implementing the mid-day meal programme since 14 years. Mid-day meal scheme is a Government of India initiative to provide free school lunch to the children of Government schools. By implementing this programme Akshaya Patra aims to provide sumptuous lunch for the school children so that it will aid in eliminating classroom hunger and also bring in more and more children to school thereby furthering the cause of education too. Hence, by providing food for education this NGO is steering its efforts towards a healthy and educated generation.

Currently, Akshaya Patra is providing food for education to 1.4 million children across the states of Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Odisha, Chhattisgarh, Rajasthan, Uttar Pradesh, Tamil Nadu, Gujarat and Telangana. Covering 23 locations across these states this NGO serves 10,661 Government schools every day. While implementing the food for education programme, Akshaya Patra receives aid in the form of Government subsidies and grants, and corporate and individual donors. Realising the significance of this support, Akshaya Patra has created a platform where a supporter can choose to donate in honour of their near and dear ones. The donation can be done through online donation for charity mode or offline donation mode depending on the comfort and convenience of the donor.

When you choose to donate in honour of someone, you are not only offering your respect and gratitude to a person but also becoming an angel for many children who are denied of their basic rights to food and education. You become a catalyst of change by your contribution of offline or online donation for charity. Most often we get so busy with our daily chores that we become ignorant about our responsibilities for the society. Akshaya Patra thus always encourages and provides opportunity for you to participate in this programme through your skill, time, or financial resource. Akshaya Patra provides a platform for you through its many Get involved activities to join the mission of providing food for education to the millions of underserved children who step into the school with the hope of getting food first and then education.

Contributing donation in honour of is definitely a heart-warming decision. It provides a sense of compassion and ‘able to relate’ feel within us. We can also choose to support the mission of mid-day meal programme by opting for online donation for charity as a part of birthday celebrations, weddings, anniversaries, festivals and functions. Occasions are many; it just requires our presence of mind and willingness to participate in the progress and development of the society.

Choose to provide food for education. Uplift your humane persona by supporting to uplift the lives of the young citizens.

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Akshaya Patra’s online annual report

Akshaya Patra launched the online version of the Annual Report 2013-14 recently. Akshaya Patra’s annual report which has been creatively designed in an animated format narrates the news and developments of the Foundation through the real life stories of five ‘super heroes’. The ‘Fab Five’ superheroes – Badal, Vinayak, Ambika, Munna and Mamatha - exemplify the great good that can come from daily access to the nutritious mid-day meal that the Foundation serves.

The online annual report covers a great deal of topics from introducing Akshaya Patra’s work to the public, gives us an overview of the Foundation’s vision and mission, showcases the organisation’s highlights for the past year, carries the financial report and even discusses Akshaya Patra’s plans for the coming year, among other details.

A major highlight of Akshaya Patra’s online annual report is its creative and engaging video which features animated versions of the five superheroes. Presented by the Vice Chairman of the organisation Chanchalapathi Dasa who introduces the annual report the five characters to the viewer, the video takes viewers into a brief, yet fascinating description of Akshaya Patra’s work. Aside from this interesting video, the online annual report also carries a PDF and flipbook version of the book.

To view Akshaya Patra’s online annual report, click here.

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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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