The Akshayapatra Foundation
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Mission Statement
The Akshaya Patra Foundation is a registered trust working to end classroom hunger amidst government school children and facilitate education. Reaching out to over 20 million children in 65 locations across 14 states of India, Akshaya Patra is one of the world’s largest NGO-run school meal program. A strong incentive for parents to send children to school, thereby encouraging enrolment, reducing absenteeism and dropout rates, the programme has a positive impact on; health and nutrition of children as well as promotes social and gender equity. The school meal program addresses the two major challenges of hunger and education. We need your support to promote basic education to underprivileged children by addressing the root cause of illiteracy-poverty and hunger. Millions of children out there are not lucky. At times midday meal is the only meal many of them have through the day. The annual cost to support the meal is Rs.1500/- per child for the complete academic year. Support Food for education
About This Cause
The Akshaya Patra Foundation is an Indian based Non-profit organization that implements a large scale, innovative school feeding program for government school going children to fight hunger, provide much needed nutrients for holistic development of a child. Akshaya Patra Mid-Day Meal program provides a healthy, balanced meal that the children would otherwise have to work for. Akshaya Patra Foundation is a pioneering school meal program to facilitate the education of underprivileged children in India, whose numbers are alarmingly high. Confronting hunger and illiteracy has been the greatest challenge of this country and Akshaya Patra is on the frontlines of this struggle. The Akshaya Patra Foundation serves the largest number of hot, freshly-cooked, unlimited nutritious meals six days of the week. The support will encourage the children to come to school regularly and help them concentrate in their studies. >VISION & MISSION The vision: No child in India shall be deprived of education because of Hunger. Hygienically cooked, nutritional midday meals to government school going children will also help in increasing enrollment, attendance and classroom participation. A single meal plays a major role in the holistic development of the child. - Mission: To reach 5 million in 2025 In India about 45 million children (13.5 million between the age group of 6 and 13) are out of school because they are hungry. As they are doing menial jobs to fend for themselves and their families, they are missing out on the benefits of education, the key to significantly improving the quality of life. Their inability to access even one nutritional meal per day is severely limiting their capacity to concentrate in the classroom and receive a proper education, which could otherwise lift them out of the cycle of poverty. A hungry child cannot concentrate on studies; hence millions spent on education of children fails to give the desired results. Convinced by the enormous power of education, the Akshaya Patra Foundation has been facilitating the education of over 2 billion children in 30 locations, 12 states of India by providing nutritious meals in schools everyday. For many children this is the only full meal that they have during the entire course of the day. Being a public Private partnership model, the school meal programme of Akshaya Patra is partially supported by the central and state governments in the form of cash subsidy and grains. DESCRIPTION - MEAL PREPARATION MODEL Ushering a technology-intensive operating model ensures high-quality of food. The program has incorporated a centralized approach, backed by technology – driven processes. Eleven of the Akshaya Patra kitchens are now ISO Certified. ISO 22000:2005 certification has been awarded to North Bangalore, South Bangalore, Jaipur, Ahmedabad, Hubli-Dharwad and Vrindavan Kitchens – a first of its kind achievement for a NGO. The program also incorporated decentralized mode of operation to cater the needs of local community and school in remote areas. Unique feature of this model is that quite Pioneering a technology-driven operating model, this programme has been a success in terms of its reach-out, scalability and replicability. Each school day, more than a million children in 10, 500+ schools across 9 Indian states eagerly await the vehicle that brings their afternoon lunch. For many of them, the food provided by The Akshaya Patra Foundation is their first, and perhaps only, meal of the day. Akshaya Patra meals meet the nutritional requirements of children, complying with the government norms as per the recommendations of qualified nutritionists. Akshaya Patra’s kitchens are technology-intensive, and can cook a minimum of 100,000 meals in less than four and a half hours with minimum human intervention and sustained quality. The cooked food is distributed through heat-insulated, dust-free special purpose vehicles. Due to extensive mechanization of the kitchen, the program is able to offer children standardized, high quality, wholesome hygienic meals and makes the programme highly cost effective. By providing unlimited, nutritious, hygienically cooked hot noon meals in government schools and government run day-care centers (Anganwadi), in partnership with the Central and State Governments, the Akshaya Patra program strives to promote universalization of primary education. Health and education incentives further supplement the central activity. >IMPACT Documented impact studies of the programme has revealed positive results on its beneficiaries in terms of school enrollment and attendance, reducing dropout rates, improvement in academic performance and as well as the health and nutritional status. The school meal programme has narrowed the social distance among all categories of children and the gender gap in education by encouraging more and more girls to come to school. The impact studies have been conducted by third party organizations like, AC Nielsen Org Marg Pvt Ltd, Mumbai, Harvard Business School, US Congressional Hunger Centre. >NEED Of MEAL The Global School Feeding Report of the United Nationǯs World Food Program endorses that: “School feeding programs often double enrollment within a year and can produce a 40 percent improvement in academic performance in just two years. Children who take part in such programs stay in school longer.” By providing unlimited, nutritious, hygienically cooked hot noon meals in government schools and government run day-care centers (Anganwadi), in partnership with the Central and State Governments, the Akshaya Patra program strives to promote universalization of primary education. Health and education incentives further supplement the central activity. >The Akshaya Patra Mid-day Meal Akshaya Patra follows the guidelines of the National Institute of Nutrition. It provides 450 calories with 12 gm protein for primary school children and 700 calories with 20 gms protein to high school children in every meal A nourishing meal to incentivize families to send their children to school where they have access to life-changing education >CREDIBILITY • Akshaya Patra is a registered Trust, having valid permissions from the Ministry of External Affairs under FCRA for foreign donations. The Ministry of Finance in a Gazette extraordinary has bestowed 100% relief for all donations made to Akshaya Patra under section 35AC up to 400 crores - Our work has been recognized by leading Public Sector Units, Corporates, Trusts and Foundations as well as individuals across the country and abroad. • We are advised in accounting standards and services by the reputed consulting firm KPMG. Our auditors are M/s BSR & Co, a renowned audit firm. ACTIVITIES & BENEFICIARY GROUP • Eradicate extreme poverty and hunger By providing freshly cooked, nutritious meals to underprivileged children in India we are not only helping to eradicate extreme poverty and hunger but also address the daunting issue of malnutrition. Quite often, this is the only meal that the children get to have during the day. • Achieve universal primary education The Akshaya Patra Foundation is also contributing towards this ‘education for all’ movement by increasing the net enrolment ratio, attendance and performance levels of the students in primary education. We achieve this by ensuring that the children get healthy, nutritious mid-day meals in government schools where the SSA program is being implemented. Along with the meals, we also provide other programs such as extra tutorial support and life skills training, for the overall development of the child in school. • Promote gender equality and empower women Studies have shown that cultural traditions and social structures often lead to girls being more affected by hunger than boys. Independent surveys indicate that where the Akshaya Patra mid-day meal program is being carried out, this gender gap has reduced significantly. Attendance and enrolment of the girl child has increased in many areas where the program is being conducted. The Akshaya Patra Foundation has also helped to remove gender inequality by providing livelihood to thousands of underprivileged women in many remote areas of the country. Our decentralized kitchen model has provided these women with a means to a daily income, thereby empowering them. AWARDS & ACCOLADES • Innovations in services for urban poor, by World Bank, IDA and Ministry of Urban Development 2010 • Akshaya Patra was awarded the ABP News Positive Award 2015 in New Delhi for being an emblem of positive change in society. • Akshaya Patra received the Quality Mark Award for Achievement and Excellence in the NGO segment for the year 2015. • Akshaya Patra has been honoured with the Nikkei Asia prize for 2016 in the Economic and Business Innovation category. The Nikkei Asia Prizes, awarded every year, recognize outstanding achievements that contribute to the region's sustainable development and creation of a better future for Asia • Akshayapatra recently received Dr Abdul Kalam memorial award for innovation in governance, 2016 in October. The award was presented during the 1st Dr. A.P.J. Abdul Kalam Memorial Summit on Innovation in Governance held in Vigyan Bhawan, New Delhi. The school meal program addresses the two major challenges of hunger and education. We need your support to promote basic education to underprivileged children by addressing the root cause of illiteracy-poverty and hunger. Millions of children out there are not lucky. At times midday meal is the only meal many of them have through the day. The annual cost to support the meal is Rs.1100/- per child for the complete academic year. Looking forward to Benevity partnering with Akshaya Patra in our mission for the school children