L&T Infotech Teams Up With Akshaya Patra Foundation For Promoting Literacy.

L&T Infotech has teamed up with Akshaya Patra Foundation for supporting a noble cause for promoting literacy. The alliance aims to educate 10,000 children studying in 35 government schools in and around this city.

As part of the Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) initiative by L&T Infotech, the company has proposed to sponsor mid-day meals of these children and provide a conveyance to bring the cooked food to the schools in a timely manner.

“The primary objective of this alliance is to encourage high school attendance, surge national literacy rates, decrease dropout rates and also to ensure that the children are well-nourished,” said Shridhar Venkat, CEO of Akshaya Patra. Further to this, the companies have signed an official memorandum of understanding (MOU) towards fulfilling the initiative. The Akshaya Patra Foundation is an NGO which runs the Mid-Day Meal Programme for Government and Government-aided school children.

Looking into the beneficiaries of Akshaya Patra

An NGO in India is providing nutritious food for children every day. What is the impact of the endeavour? You have to meet a few children to decide for yourself. The Akshaya Patra Foundation currently feeds millions of children in its effort to eliminate classroom hunger. It also tries to make a direct connection with the beneficiary children— look into their lives, know more about them and see if the programme of delivering school meals every day is helping them or not.

Let’s meet Yashoda, a 12-year-old girl with an aspiration to become a teacher. She is bright student and one of the toppers in her batch. She had recently lost her father. Yashoda’s mother, a home maker till the demise of her husband, has started working at a garment industry to support the family. Yashoda says, “My father’s wish was that I become a lecturer at a college and educate students. He inspired me and I want to do my best.” She is determined to become a teacher. Yashoda also wants to help society. She wants to educate the less fortunate too when she becomes a teacher. Akshaya Patra serves nutritious mid-day meal at her school every day and she loves pulao. She is also aware that the vegetables served by Akshaya Patra are good for health.

Know more about Yashoda @ Akshaya Patra Beneficiary

Now let’s say cheers to Venu who never misses school on Thursday because of Aloo (Potato) Biryani (mixed rice dish) served by Akshaya Patra on that day every week. Normally Venu likes the food provided by Akshaya Patra every day but, Biryani is his favourite. Venu is a fifth standard student who likes English and wants to be an engineer. He is a bright, hardworking boy whose younger brother and elder sister are also studying at the same school. This means all the siblings are beneficiaries of the Mid-Day Meal Programme.

Know more about Venu @ Stories of Children

Before making a closing note it better to meet another child. Here is Soujanya, an eighth standard class topper, who loves maths and aspires to become a maths teacher. Her amity with numbers started at an early age when she realised she is good with it. She wants to be perfect with the subject. About Akshaya Patra, she says, “I’m lucky to have the meals. It is nutritious and tasty. It helps me concentrate in class.” She is particularly fond of the fruits and loves the biryani served every Thursday.

Know more about Soujanya @ Akshaya Patra Success stories of Children

Think about stories of millions of children like Yashoda, Venu and Soujanya. Many of these children generally belong to economically challenged family backgrounds. A nutritious meal at school every day is a relief to the families too, knowing that their children are well fed in school. Children need good nutrition at this time in their lives for proper growth and cognitive development. It’s a crucial time which is never coming back. If we have to do something, we have to do it now!

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How to Get involved with Akshaya Patra Children Charity

Every now and then we ask how we could contribute to making the world a better place. At Akshaya Patra, we give supporters the chance to help the future of India. The several volunteering opportunities available at Akshaya Patra give supporters the opportunity to work in partnership with the organisation without interfering with their day-to-day activities and responsibilities.

There are several ways to volunteer with the organisation:

CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) opportunities- By supporting Akshaya Patra’s goal of providing food for education, any CSR activity will benefit school children in India. Our tie-ups with several philanthropic partners include generous contributions through funds and in-kind. Akshaya Patra welcomes strategic cause-marketing initiatives, innovation and project solutions for the children. 

  

Volunteer opportunities- Being an online supporter will help spread Akshaya Patra’s message across the world. Promoting the cause on various social media platforms brings awareness about the Foundation’s work. To nurture good relationships between supporters and the organisation, Akshaya Patra welcomes sharing and implementing innovative fundraising ideas which can be done at home, at school or in the community. If you are a budding scribe or a social media junkie who wants to make a difference, join Akshaya Patra’s online platforms.

Fundraise with Akshaya Patra- With collaborated efforts, reaching any goal will be made easy. To make a difference in the lives of children, supporters can fundraise by creating a campaign for Akshaya Patra. With active fundraising campaigns also running in parallel, supporters can join any of those campaigns and make a contribution towards the cause.  

Partnerships – Since its inception in 2000, Akshaya Patra has worked closely with reputed individuals and companies. Aiming to build strong ties, the Foundation encourages partnerships with the vision of ending classroom hunger in India. If interested kindly write to in to infodesk@akshayapatra.org .

With the mission to feed 5 million children by 2020, Akshaya Patra encourages individuals to join forces with the organisation and work towards uplifting the underserved children in India.

To know more about the opportunities, visit Akshaya Patra Get Involved.

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The Akshaya Patra Foundation, NGO in India has implemented the mid-day meal scheme to feed the future of India. The organization is feeding the government school children of 24 locations across 10 states in India.

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Charity is not just fund contribution!

More often than not, charity is considered as supporting non-profit organisations through financial donations. But, today NGOs are making efforts to bring in a paradigm shift in the way people perceive charity. The non-profits are striving towards various creative and innovative ways to involve people and their talent for the greater good of the society. The word charity has gone beyond regular fund contribution. Now it taps the skill, time and willingness of people to do social good.

Here is an example of one such non-profit organisation. The Akshaya Patra Foundation is an Indian NGO working towards implementation of the mid-day meal programme. Initiated in 2002, the Foundation operates in a Public-Private Partnership model. Agreeing to the significant role that monetary support has played in setting up of the entire organisation and sustaining the NGO over 14 years; Akshaya Patra is also equally grateful to all the support that it received in terms of knowledge sharing, employing skills and investing time for the benefit of underserved children. Weighing the importance of both financial and non-financial support Akshaya Patra has derived a volunteering platform for supporters from all walks of life. The volunteering platform of Akshaya Patra accommodates activities that can be easily executed by individual, group and also corporate supporters.

The Get Involved section of Akshaya Patra will introduce you to a wide array of volunteering activities to choose from. Some of them being as simple as sharing Facebook and Twitter posts and thereby becoming an online supporter! One can also utilise his or her passion for bike riding as a medium to spread awareness about Akshaya Patra’s cause. If you are a photographer, you can tell Akshaya Patra’s story through your lenses! If you are a writer then share about Akshaya Patra beneficiaries in your blog. A corporate can partner with Akshaya Patra as a part of their Corporate Social Responsibility initiative. An innovation firm can support the cause by providing innovative technological advice to the Foundation.

Akshaya Patra welcomes social collaboration from each citizen. Let’s take this opportunity to give a new meaning to charity.

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Akshaya Patra on NGC’s ‘Mega Kitchen’ documentary series

The National Geographic Channel will be featuring Akshaya Patra in a special telecast premier of their documentary series ‘NGC Mega Kitchens’. The pilot episode which is titled ‘Akshaya Patra – Shiksha Ka Mahabhog’ will be aired on 27th April, 9 pm on The National Geographic Channel.

This will be the first episode of a twelve part documentary series. The episode highlights Akshaya Patra’s highly mechanised approach of providing the Government Mid-Day Meal Scheme to over 1.4 million children every day. Through their kitchens constructed over 24 locations in India, Akshaya Patra supplies food to 10,770 Government and Government aided schools in India.

Get a preview of this special episode here. 

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Striving for Excellence

 

Let’s delve into the lives of one of our employees from The Akshaya Patra Foundation! Saudamini Sahoo from our decentralised kitchen at Nayagarh, Odisha, joined the organisation in 2013. She heard about the work the Foundation does in 2007, and had her heart set on joining Akshaya Patra in providing food for education to the underprivileged school children in her locality.

Howzat for healthy!

Jaga Pradhan currently studies in the fifth standard at the Vijayanagar Project Primary School in Puri. An energetic, vibrant young boy, Jaga enjoys coming to school to study Science and Literature above all his other subjects. His older brother works as a daily wage earner, while his mother is a construction worker. Both Jaga and his younger brother attend the same school and are beneficiaries of The Akshaya Patra mid-day meal.

On her way to a PhD!

We’ve always known that The Akshaya Patra Foundation’s mid-day meal programme has the power to transform lives, and here’s the proof. Saraswati, a beneficiary of the programme throughout high school recently walked into the Akshaya Patra office to have a chat with us on the direction her life has taken, since school.

India’s children are #HungryForSchool

Child Labour in India has been a reality that we have all lived with, in the nation. From which ever strata of society to which we belong, we either directly or indirectly know of someone whose child does not have access to education because he/she is employed and contributing to running the household.

Introducing ‘Thali For All’

The Akshaya Patra Foundation decided to step up its game with the introduction of a fun application, ‘Thali For All.’ Launched on February 13, 2014 the game is designed to sensitize players to the cause of Akshaya Patra (What cause), how the kitchens operate and the utmost importance given to food quality and safety, all in a way that’s fun and entertaining.

Saluting India’s Women this Women’s Day

Women’s empowerment has always been a cause that The Akshaya Patra Foundation has been conscious of. Though women’s empowerment is not directly associated with the cause of providing Food for Education, Akshaya Patra has always in its own way, worked toward the empowerment of the women in society.

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.

Akshaya Patra, a pan India presence and going strong

We’ve reached the end of 2013 and The Akshaya Patra Foundation is proud to say that we have a presence in 20 locations across nine states, with the most recent kitchen in Surat being opened.

Standing up for your rights

Across the world, people are celebrating today, December 10, as Human Rights Day; a day to acknowledge the needs of the nation, the needs of the world and the basic standards that we as a society have to live up to. One of our most fundamental human rights is the right to adequate food and education.

A Bellyful of Benefit

We’re living in an age where education is power. It is the power to be informed, make decisions, earn money and take control of your life. The Akshaya Patra Foundation believes that no child should be deprived of an education because of hunger, and so started its mid-day meal programme to allow children to study on a full belly and one day, gain that power.

Vrindavan kitchen forges Ahead

When The Akshaya Patra Foundation expanded its operations to the holy city of Vrindavan in the Mathura district of Uttar Pradesh, it couldn’t have come at a better time. The northern Indian state has historically been plagued by staggeringly low nutrition and welfare levels, making development in the region an uphill battle.

An Akshaya Patra and Vasudev Adiga’s Initiative to Provide a Million Meals for Children

VasudevAdiga’s, a popular chain of restaurants in Karnataka, has committed to raise funds to support The Akshaya Patra, an NGO which serves mid day meals to government school children in India. VasudevAdiga’s aims to fund one million meals in collaboration with its customers, partners and employees.

Not for profit organization for children in Forbes

The Akshaya Patra Foundation, a not-for-profit organisation in India has been featured in Forbes through an article written by the organisations former Board Member- Nish Acharya. Presently, he is a Senior Fellow with North-eastern University and the Center for American Progress. In his article he brings out his experience while working with the organisation along with the mid day meal scheme success stories. He also duly points out the organisation’s effort to provide mid day meal to millions of children every day across 20 locations of 9 states. Nish Acharya’s article was published on the Skoll World Forum. This forum is a platform for discussion on important social issues across the world.