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The Food for Education programme by The Akshaya Patra Foundation, an NGO in Surat, feeds the dreams of 1,43,293 children in 337 schools in the city. Among these dreams is that of Divya Chandrakar, an 11-year-old Akshaya Patra beneficiary studying in Std VI in Shri Baba Amte Primary School, Surat. This young lady wants to be a figure in elegance and become a dancer.
Like many of her counterparts, Divya’s interests are varied, from academics to co-curricular activities. She also likes to participate in competitions such as drawing and dance contests and Sports Day. “At school, we can study, play, learn new things and have nutritious meals,” says Divya, the daughter of a house painter father and a mother who works in a paper mill. There are numerous children like her, who receive a mid-day meal in Surat to power the pursuit of their aspirations and keep them in school.
Divya is fond of the food served in her school as part of the Foundation’s school lunch programme. The names of several items on the menu are on the tip of her tongue and she delightfully lists khichdi, roti, Naan Khatai and more! Her favourite dish is Dal Chawal. She concludes, “Some of us don’t get food from home and can’t afford to eat outside, so the food provided by Akshaya Patra is important to us. Without it, we’ll feel hungry and won’t be able to study. It is this food that gives me the energy to concentrate and the enthusiasm to dance.”
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Food for Education has benefitted millions of children in India in remarkable ways. Ashwini Beriskar, a 13-year-old student from Surat, is an Akshaya Patra beneficiary who gets mid-day meals in her school. Akshaya Patra team, an NGO in Surat and other places in India, recently met Ashwini who shared her dreams of becoming an Information Technology (IT) professional.
Mid-day meals in Surat have been operational since 2012 and today, 337 government and aided schools in this city are benefitted by Akshaya Patra’s school lunch Programme. Ashwini is one the students who represents many others who are just like her; determined and proud of her family. Her father, rickshaw driver, is the only earning member in the family and mother is a housewife.
As a student, she likes participating in essay contests, dancing competitions and enjoys one of the most challenging subjects – Math. And as a beneficiary, she enjoys mid-day meals provided in her school; her favourite dish is Khichdi. She says, "These mid-day meals are important because not everyone brings tiffin from home, especially children whose parents leave early for work and don’t have the time to prepare food." Then, there are students who get food from home sometimes. The rest of the days they are dependent on Akshaya Patra food. Even those who bring tiffin eat this food.”
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UNESCO’s International
Literacy Day is celebrating its 50th anniversary this year and the banner
says “Reading the Past, Writing the Future”. Clearly, the motto is to ensure
that we learn from our past achievements and failures and carve a promising
future in the quality of education and literacy rates.
When UNESCO had proclaimed September 8 as International
Literacy Day 50 years ago, it had set out its focus on the eradication of
illiteracy by mobilising various channels, organisations and communities.
Today, it’s indeed a large community of like-minded individuals and
organisations that are working together for facilitating education for children
and adults. The day will also mark the awarding of International Literacy
Prizes in order to honour people who have outstanding solutions towards
achieving the 2030 Education Agenda. UNESCO has begun to implement the 2030
Education agenda for the illiteracy eradication that aims at “achieving
literacy and numeracy to all youth and a substantial proportion of adults, both
men and women.” At Akshaya Patra, we couldn’t be more excited than now since we
work with the motto of “food for education” in order to reach out to the
unreached children of India with food and education.
As UNESCO launches its new agenda on education, our
government continues to work towards enhancing the quality of children’s
education. Many studies report that in India many children do not attend school
since they have to take care of domestic chores at home as their parents fetch
bread and butter every day. However, it’s more worrying that a major portion of
population does not think it necessary to pursue education.
The education system in India still suffers from high school
drop-out rates. The data from the National Sample Survey Office (NSSO) had
revealed last year that 13 out of every 100 Indians between 5-29 years did not
attend school or dropped out because they did not consider education necessary.
As an NGO for children, Akshaya
Patra encourages dialogue and interaction with decision makers within families
of children and makes them aware about the importance of education. We do wish
to eliminate one crucial factor of hunger that deprives children of education
yet we recognise that our efforts need to go beyond this.
We realised that the proportion of kids who don’t attend
school due to financial constraints or domestic chores was higher between 10-14
years. This was the same demographic that also considered education
unnecessary. With our Mid-Day Meal Programme, we intended to uproot the above
two major factors of dropping out. As a result, many parents were persuaded to
send all their kids to school since they knew that the school was taking care
of one of their meals. Many remote government schools noticed a dip in the
school drop-out rate with visible change in the admissions. One such example is
the Zilla Parishad School in T K Pura near Hyderabad, which today educates 103
students. The students became regular while the enrollment rate went up by
2%.
How are we making a
difference?
While we know that much needs to improve in the education
system in India, we also believe that this system is capable enough to make
children aware about the world and their surroundings apart from empowering
them with literacy.
The year 2016 has been better for the government in terms of
decreasing the number of school drop-outs. Many states have made progress
towards this. A recent government report states that Odisha had made
significant progress in reducing school dropout rates from 18.72% in 2012-13 to
6.02% in 2015-16. It’s extremely encouraging because we have been working in
Odisha for many years as an NGO for children and providing mid-day meals in schools.
On International Literacy Day, you have the opportunity of
joining the Education Agenda 2030 along with Akshaya Patra. We need more
children and more adults who know how to read and write. Education is such a
tool that can equip people to face any challenge in life while illiteracy often
disrupts their progress.
You can make a difference too by a small charity donation. As we
celebrate the completion of 2 billion meals, we strive to involve more people
towards the cause of food for education.
Posted by Akshaya Patra Foundation
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The Akshaya Patra Foundation, an NGO in Rajasthan and nine other states, is proceeding towards its mission of feeding 5 million children by 2020 by reaching out to more cities across India. This NGO in Rajasthan recently signed an official agreement with State Government to implement Mid-Day Meal Programme in Ajmer.
Since 2004, mid-day meal in Rajasthan has been operational serving nutritious meals to over 135,000 beneficiaries and now, Ajmer will be the fifth centre to be benefitted by the food for education programme.
An MoU was signed between Akshaya Patra and
Government of Rajasthan in the presence of Vasudev Devnani, Education Minister
and Anita Badhel, Women and Child Development Minister of the state. Other
significant personalities present during this formal gathering were MLA
Pushkar, Major of Ajmet, Collector, Superintendent of Police, and District
Education Officers.
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The major drawback in India is that children from low-income families
are not entitled to proper education for lack of food. The children tend to
remain hungry as their parents cannot afford them a meal.For them, a square meal is more important than acquiring education. So
they accompany parents to work places. As a result, attendance has dropped down
and drop-outs have increased. It is
estimated that more than 50% of Indian children drop out of the schools at
primary level. Unfortunately, India
shares 34% percent of the world’s illiterate population.
Without education a child can never progress. Understanding the link
between education and nutrition, Akshaya Patra serves unlimited food for education keeping their growth requirements in mind. The meals are delivered with
proper nutrition; quality, prescribed calories and safety. Adequate supply of
micro nutrients as iron, folic acid, zinc, fibre, essential fatty acids,
calcium, carbohydrates, protein vitamin A are supplemented through the mid-day
meals. During lunch servings; roti, rice, rice khichadi, curd rice,
vegetable pulao, mixed vegetable curry, sambar, dhal, rasam etc.
are served. The sambar and curries contain lots of vegetables which have
essential nutrients that are required for the adequate growth of children. The
rice and wheat served meets adequate standards as prescribed by The Government
of India. Every meal served is warm,
fresh, nutritious and ready to eat. So hunger, which is an obstacle to
children’s health, education and survival are tackled by the nutritious mid-day
meals.
The mid-day meal solves two of the critical United Nations Millennium
Development Goals. The first is to End Poverty and Hunger and second is to
achieve Universal Education. Food for education solves the obstacle of hunger
that is a hindrance for education and health.
Hunger
hinders a child’s learning process. Let no child miss the opportunity to attend
school for the lack of food. Let us donate for the
NGO so that it can reach out to more children. Let us work together to serve children and
end class room hunger. It takes just Rs. 750 to feed a child for a year! Every
donation of Rs. 500 or above made to Akshaya Patra is eligible for 100% tax
exemption under section 35 AC or 50% tax exemption under Section 80 G of the
Indian Income Tax.
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Learning is fun,
but only when the stomach is full. A hungry
child cannot think about anything else other than food. This can affect the
way a child concentrates in the class and his or her overall performance at the
school.
The food issue
has grown to such an extent that, these children are sometimes compelled to go
for work to earn their daily bread. No wonder, India is yet to attain complete freedom from child labour, an issue which
has always stood in the path of our nation’s development. However, there has
been a remarkable change in this trend from the past few years. Data from the Ministry of Labour & Employment
shows that in 2011, only 43.53 lakh children aged between five and 14 opted
work over their school compared to the 1.26 crore children in the year 2001.
A report released
by the World Bank shows that more students were going back to school from the
year 2000 onwards. It was the same year when The Akshaya Patra Foundation,
a Mid-Day Meal NGO was established. Only 1.4 million students missed out school
in 2011 compared to 32 million in 2001.
An initiative established
with a mission to end classroom hunger has succeeded in bringing some of our vulnerable
children back to the school. The
organisation has come a long way in attaining its mission and Akshaya Patra’s Mid-Day
Meal Programme today feeds over 1.4 million underserved Government school
children in 10 states, compared to 1,500 children in 2000.
Akshaya Patra has received
wide support and donations from different parts of the world and the
organisation hopes to feed 5 million school children by 2020.
Children are considered to be a gift from the
God. It is our responsibility to protect and support the gift. Support the cause today
and return our children their right to
education.
The Akshaya Patra Foundation is completing its 15 years of service in the society. The NGO started in the year 2000 by feeding just 1500 children. In the 15th anniversary of the organization it reached 1.4 million children. On this occasion, Akshaya Patra is contesting some fun activities. Visit celebrating 15 year.
Posted by Akshaya Patra Foundation
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There is nothing nobler than helping the ones
in need. And if they are children, it is a responsibility as well as an
opportunity. Children’s basics need of food
and education are the most essential ingredients that will allow them to
grow up strong, smart and a better citizen. In India many children are in want
of help from us.
Millions of children in India are malnourished
and driven to child labour and other unsavoury occupations just for a square
meal when they are supposed to go to schools and get educated. The connection
of food and education is natural. Both factors correspond to each other
directly. To bridge gap between hunger and education the Government of India
and the State Governments have developed several initiatives and programme.
Amongst the programmes is the Mid-Day Meal Programme. And The Akshaya
Patra Foundation is one of the many NGOs that are implementing the programme to
feed children in schools.
Akshaya Patra runs the mid-day meal programme and
feed children in schools every day in an effort to eliminate classroom hunger.
Currently, it is providing nutritious mid-day meals to more than 1.4 million
children from 24 locations in 10 stated across India. The mission of Akshaya Patra is to feed 5 million by
2020. Being an NGO, The Akshaya Patra Foundation needs support from people to
keep up the programme and reach out to more children. And as it is agreed that
helping children is not just a noble deed but, also our responsibility and an
opportunity, expectation for support grows and we know these children will be
disappointed as long as there are responsible citizens in the country.
Get Involve with the organization and help the children.
Posted by Akshaya Patra Foundation
Posted on 10:27 AM
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Axalta Coating Systems has partnered with Akshaya Patra to help provide unlimitedfood for educationto the underserved children hailing from the communities near their manufacturing plant at Savli. The Vadodara kitchen of The Akshaya Patra Foundation will be providing the mid-day meals sponsored by Axalta Coating Systems. The company which is exclusively into the business of coatings is a global leader that provides innovative and beautiful solutions to their clients.
Discussing the partnership between Axalta and The Akshaya Patra Foundation, Vinay Rajadhyaksha, Managing Director of Axalta’s operations in India, said, “Community development and associating ourselves with social causes which ensure sustainable development are part of Axalta’s values as a company. We are proud that we can contribute to society, and especially to the communities where we operate, by associating ourselves with an NGO that supports children and provides some of the resources they need for their education and, in turn, for them to contribute to the nation as they grow into adults. Reaching out to children in Gujarat with nutritious meals through Akshaya Patra helps us give back to the society in the best possible manner.”
This joint undertaking between Axalta Coating Systems and The Akshaya Patra Foundation will indeed be extremely beneficial to the community in which both organisations function.
Jaganmohan Krishna Dasa, President of Akshaya Patra Gujarat expressed his gratitude to Axalta Coating Systems for their assistance in helping Akshaya Patra move closer to fulfilling its role of feeding 5 million children by 2020.
Posted by Akshaya Patra Foundation
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Big data analytics (‘the process of capturing, managing and analysing huge amounts of data to generate useful information’) is crucial to every company, regardless of the industry. It helps map the growth curve of the organisation and allows it to closely align itself to its future targets and time frames.
The Akshaya Patra Foundation has utilised big data analytics in its cause of providing food for educationto under nourished, underprivileged children across India. The Foundation which provides the mid-day meal to over 1.4 million children across 10,661 Government and Government-aided schools across the country on every school day has turned to big data to help it economise this processes.
Explaining how big data analytics has helped The Akshaya Patra Foundation, Vice-Chairman Chanchalapathi Dasa says, “We were taking 34 routes to deliver food to Government schools in Bangalore and each route costs us an average of Rs. 60,000 a month.” Big data analytics showed that by reducing the number of routes by five Akshaya Patra would save Rs. 300,000.
Akshaya Patra has made use of big data analytics across a range of areas from raising and allocating funds, to planning campaigns and forecasting future trends in the non-profit industry.
The organisation also used big data analytics to streamline its fundraising mediums. The results showed that using less expensive mediums such as the internet and telephone raised more funds for the Foundation.
Expanding on this Chanchalapathi Dasa says, “We have been able to increase funds obtained by liaising over the internet and telephone to 17 per cent of our total funds, up from the 4 per cent it used to account for two years ago.”
Keeping the financial constraints of NGOs in mind, the Indian Institute of Management Bangalore (IIM-B) helped Akshaya Patra plan for the most optimum food delivery routes using their data analytics lab at no cost.
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Following the trajectory of The Akshaya Patra Foundation’s movement across the country, it pleased me greatly to see that the Foundation has opened yet another kitchen at Rourkela, in Odisha. The Akshaya Patra Foundation already has two kitchens in Odisha, one at Puri and the other at Nayagarh, but this third kitchen is expected to help fill in a much needed gap in the state.
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We’re feeding 1.3 million children every day, and have our eye set on feeding 5 million by 2020. There may be a long way to go, but we at The Akshaya Patra Organisation believe that every drop in the ocean counts. These are some of the inspiring stories we have come across that gives us the strength to carry on.
Posted by Akshaya Patra Foundation
Posted on 10:44 AM
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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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Celebrating International Girl Child Day , Today, Oct 11,2012.
Safa Farooq is a grade 2 student at the Government Higher Primary School in Bengre Kasba located in the city of Mangalore. She eagerly waits for the mid day meal served at the school every day.
Her mother shares “Considering the family’s economic condition the mid day meal is a blessing for Safa. The child often talks about the variety in the menu. By her explanations, we know that she likes the Payasam and the Pulao the most. Not even once has she complained about the food.”
Safa is too young to understand the family’s economic condition or the impact of the mid day meal on her health. But the smiles, healthy features, and her enthusiasm to attend school, are what stands as a testimony to the success of mid day meals by Akshaya Patra.
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September 25, 2012 was a big day for the Akshaya Patra's Jaipur Kitchen. The day saw the launch of the country's first ever bakery machine for mid day meal programme.
Addressing the gathering at the launch , chief guest Mr. Pratap Singh Khachriyavas, MLA, announced a donation of Rs. 10 lakhs for Akshaya Patra. He said that the money was donated from his MLA fund which can be utilised for any of the kitchen's activities.
He also congratulated Akshaya Patra for launching ‘Akshaya Thali’ schemefor the benefit of the school children. Speaking on the occasion, Shri Ratnangadha Govind Dasa, Unit President – Jaipur, said that local students can now savour nutritious biscuits as part of their mid day meal.
The machine is capable of producing 30,000 biscuits a day.The machine has been launched to add taste and variety in the mid day mealmenu.
Now you can follow us on Akshaya Patra Twitter and Akshaya PatraFacebook
Posted by The Akshaya Patra Foundation
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In India, hunger
plays a major role in the downfall of the economy, ranking shamefully in 67th
place in Global Hunger Index! More than 231 million people in India are
undernourished which is the highest than every other country in the world and
42% of India’s children are underweight clearing indication India’s “Chronic
Hunger” situation.
Let us join
hands with The Akshaya Patra Foundation to eradicate hunger. Let us support us on
this noble cause to eventuate a “Hunger Free World”. Sponsor Food for Children for this Worldhunger day 2012.
Posted by The Akshaya Patra Foundation
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A centralized model is one where all the cooking activities of a particular location are concentrated within one large kitchen.
Each centralized kitchen has the capacity to cook between 50 000 to 150 000 meals daily thus achieving economies of scale. Cooking takes place in mechanized, steam heated cauldrons custom built to reduce the cook to consume time.
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