A life beyond Hunger

“One cannot think well, love well, sleep well, if one has not dined well.” – Virginia Woolf

A sentiment we all understand from our own personal experiences with hunger. For most of us, hunger is a fleeting sensation, easily satisfied in a quick transaction. But for many in India, around 269.3 million to be more precise, hunger is a way of life.

It’s there in in the morning as a young mother asks her child to wait till later to have the one meal of the day, it’s there in the late afternoon as the sun scorches down on tired, weakened bodies, and it’s there at night as whimpering children are laid to bed with the promise that tomorrow will fare better.

If one cannot have enough food to eat, then one can do nothing else. Without food for strength, how does a husband support his family? How does a father play with his children? How does a mother nurse her babies? How do the children run and play?

This understanding that food as a basic human need must be satisfied before all else, is not a new concept to the human race. Abraham Maslow in 1943 proposed a hierarchy of needs, represented in the form of a pyramid, with the most basic needs at the bottom. According to Maslow, it is only after the physiological needs of oxygen, food, water, sleep etc. have been fulfilled that a human being can look to achieve the next level of safety, then the need for love and belonging, the need for esteem and finally when all these needs are satisfied, one can look toward achieving self-actualisation.

This concept proved itself to be true when the former Chief Minister of the state of Tamil Nadu in India once saw a boy herding livestock and asked him, “What are you doing with these cows? Why don’t you go to school?” and was immediately met with the response, “If I go to school will you give me food to eat? I can only learn if I eat.” - Like they say, ‘Out of the mouth of babes.’

Akshaya Patra as an organisation recognises the truth behind that little boy’s words. Children cannot study on an empty stomach. By providing mid-day meals to government schools across the country, Akshaya Patra Organisation has provided a means to satiate the gnawing hunger stopping children from getting an education in India these days.

Through their mid-day meal programme, Akshaya Patra provides ‘Food for Education’ which fulfills the basic need for nourishment and allows children to slowly turn their attention to higher needs such as aspiration, economic satisfaction and self-esteem. Through this ingenious and noble concept, Akshaya Patra has helped give children a leg up on a psychological ladder that they would have normally spent their lives seeing only the bottom rung of.