An NGO's effort to make health is wealth for children

‘Health is wealth’ is a familiar phrase and it becomes even more important with respect to children. The first five years of a child is considered to be the most crucial growth phase as a significant amount of development and learning happens during these formative years. And, an important aspect that promotes healthy growth is consumption of nutritious diet. Nutrition improves cognitive functioning, appropriate physical development, maintains energy levels, and provides enhanced immunity against infections and diseases. And, there is enough evidence to establish the relationship between nutrition, health, and learning.

So that every child receives the best of nutrition, many NGOs have taken it up as their core cause to provide wholesome meals to children mainly targeting the lower socio-economic strata of the society. One such NGO for children in India is The Akshaya Patra Foundation. Established in June 2000, this NGO implements the Mid-Day Meal Programme in government schools across the country with the vision ‘No child in India shall be deprived of education because of hunger’. For the past 17 years, the Foundation has been tirelessly working towards providing freshly cooked, nutritious school lunch to school children so that children continue schooling and at the same time benefit from the programme health-wise. Before talking further about this NGO and its work towards promoting health and education, here is a list of reasons that explains the significance of investing in nutrition, health, and education of children:

Thus, it is evident that nutrition, health, and education become critically important during the growth years of children.

Well, heeding to the above-mentioned aspects of nutrition and health, Akshaya Patra, the NGO for children strives to provide ‘unlimited food for education’. In order to maximise the benefit of the Mid-Day Meal Programme, Akshaya Patra operates to formats of kitchen facility – centralised kitchen to provide school lunch in urban and semi-urban areas, and decentralised kitchens to provide school lunch in remote areas. To ensure meals are nutritious, the NGO employs various quality measures in its operations – right from procurement of raw materials to delivering the cooked meals. Raw materials are procured based on Supplier Quality Management System and are inspected as per Food Safety and Standards Authority of India (FSSAI). All the kitchens follow the FIFO (First In First Out) and FEFO (First Expiry First Out) methods while issuing the raw material for production. Washed and sterilised vessels and tools are used for cutting, cooking and transporting food. All employees are trained in good hygiene practices and food safety measures. It is mandatory for each member in the kitchen to follow the hygiene chart comprising of daily shower, use of clean uniforms, head caps, face masks to cover the mouth and nose area, hand gloves, gumboots, other protective gears and hand sanitisation. Cooked food is transported in insulated vehicles to retain the freshness and quality of meals. Continual Improvement Projects, Six Sigma methodologies, 5S, GMP, Lean and Kaizen are some of the process improvement methods implemented across all kitchens.

This charitable trust understands the value of each penny and hence on an average, 92% of the total donation is used towards meeting the programme cost and 8% towards the programme management cost. Such effective management of funds and operations has led the Foundation to grow steadily over the years. From feeding just 1,500 children in five government schools of Bengaluru in 2000, Akshaya Patra has expanded its reach to more than 1.7 million children across 12 states of India. It has impacted young lives with wholesome meals on every school day. So, even though Akshaya Patra is a mid-day meal NGO, it wouldn’t be wrong to say donate for education in India because its service of 17 years has been instrumental in bringing children to school and empowering them with education.

In a nutshell, to create a healthy society, we must focus on the health of children. And, to create a prosperous society, we must focus on the education of children. Only healthy children can contribute to the socio-economic growth of themselves and the society.

Empowering Every Child's Dream

In 1878, two American brothers took an interest in aeronautics at a very young age when their father brought home a toy helicopter which was made out of paper. A few years later, upon realizing their dream, they went on to create the world’s first flight. A chance to achieve their dream came in different forms – funds from a cycle repair shop, drawings of flights by engineers and artists and most importantly support from fellow beings around them. Today, Wright Brothers’ success story needs no introduction.

Children’s dreams can be honest and genuine and their minds are free to create blueprints of what they want to achieve in their life. When little minds aspire to achieve something and work towards the dream, it empowers them in discovering their abilities and strengths. However, in India, we have more than 17 million children who do not have access to basic education or even a square meal which forces them to limit their aspirations and give in to the hardship of earning few rupees a day. In a situation like this, dreams that have great potential to see success get defeated. To relieve children from such unfavorable circumstances, it is important that we, as a society, not only help them access the basics but also encourage them to dream big.

The Akshaya Patra Foundation, an NGO for children that provides mid-day meals to more than 1.5 million school goers every day, believes in giving every child’s dream a chance simply because they are not meant to be trapped in the mind. The initiative ‘Giving Every Dream a Chance’ was launched recently by the Foundation and aims to act as a guiding star for children in getting a step closer to their dreams. As a pilot project, the three Akshaya Patra beneficiaries underwent a successful two-month mentorship programme with an expertise from their field of interest and the Foundation now plans to stretch the initiative to multiple cities across the country. With the right guidance, children with dreams will be able to understand their aspirations and also develop their skills.

In a world that is aggressively competitive, a dream does not become a reality unless you believe and give it a chance and the success once you have achieved it, surmounts the hard journey. With a belief that every child’s dream in our country deserves a fair chance, the initiative 'Giving Every Dream a Chance' has been launched by The Akshaya Patra Foundation. Meanwhile, the mid-day meal programme by the foundation continues to tackle hunger surge among children across many states and nourish the minds for improved concentration in classrooms.

Shekar - The Aspiring Chef

Manjula - The Debuting Actress

Shivu - The Aspiring Astronomer

Join Akshaya Patra on their journey where hundreds of children from across the country will be benefitting from the initiative ‘Giving Every Dream a Chance.’ To help children dream fearlessly, the focus continues to be hunger relief among school goers through nutritious mid-day meals. By contributing Rs. 750, you can feed a child for an entire year! To help us achieve this, donate here.

Healthy Food for Children is Crucial for Development

All the major developments of the body and brain take place at childhood.  Therefore, lots of vegetables, fruits, nuts, legumes and whole grains are essential in the food for children to ensure their healthy development. However, the reality is that not all the children in India have access to proper nutrition, especially in their formative years, in fact millions still don’t. The silver lining is that the situation has become far better than what it was used to be, largely thanks to the efforts of various NGOs for children and people who donate to charity.

Healthy food for children is important for several reasons:

• Early childhood - from birth to eight years is one of the most critical periods in children’s growth. It is during this period children grow fast and acquire all their basic skills including language, socio-emotional development (attachment, sense of right and wrong); and fine (ability to hold pencils) and gross (balance, skip) motor skills. Vital nutrients in fruits and vegetables like vitamin C, vitamin A, fibre, folate, potassium, magnesium and phytochemicals help keep the body and mind healthy. This is why doctors and health experts specify on including more fruits and vegetables in food for children.
• Countless studies in the past have also highlighted importance of healthy eating during childhood.  A balanced diet has been shown to increase brain function, improve behaviour and concentration of students and improve children’s learning capacity and academic performance.  According to the World Health Organization (WHO), healthy nutrition also protects children against obesity and chronic diseases like cancer, eating disorders and cardiovascular diseases. In addition, following a healthy diet during the early stages of growth also helps one remain healthy in adulthood and at old age. 

On the other hand, chronic malnutrition has been proved to leave irreversible damage on children, both in their physical and mental development. UNICEF states that about 7.6 million children around the world die before age five. Around 200 million children manage to survive; but fail to reach full human potential due to various reasons like poor nutrition, inadequate care and lack of opportunities.  According to the experts, early intervention by giving opportunities to overcome these issues can yield promising results and help improve survival, growth, health and other areas of early development.

In India, effort to provide opportunities to underserved children was initiated through many NGO for children like The Akshaya Patra Foundation. With the help of individuals who donate to charity, Akshaya Patra has been providing nutritious food for children since 2000.

Giving children the opportunity to attend school regularly, the organisation currently delivers freshly cooked nutritious meals to over 1.4 million children every day. The NGO for children aims at providing more food for children by expanding its reach to 5 million students by 2020.

To help make this happen, join Akshaya Patra and donate to charity. Your support will ensure more children get wholesome meals every day in government and government aided schools, and get the opportunity to grow physically and mentally strong.

Akshaya Patra’s Message on World Food Day

As observed every year, the World Food Day will take place on 16 October. The vital objective is to make people aware about hunger challenges and encourage them to take action.

The theme this year is “Social protection and Agriculture”, defining the role social protection in reducing chronic food insecurity and poverty.  It aims to ensure direct access or the means to buy food.  It is also a practical alternative for stimulating agricultural production and local economy.

Many themes gained prominence each year but the entire focus is to find a way to eradicate hunger altogether. Because, it is a fundamental right to be free from hunger and the right to adequate food. The right to adequate food is realized when every man, woman and child has the access to adequate food or means for its procurement at all times.

Many NGOs and innovative companies are partaking in the attempt to counter hunger by taking responsibility of one of the various initiatives developed by the Government. The Akshaya Patra Foundation is one such NGO that implements the Mid-Day Meal Scheme across 10 states benefiting over 1.4 million children every day. By providing mid-day meal, it aims to bridge the gap of inaccessibility to wholesome meal during the growing years of underserved children. As children have to attend to school to benefit from the mid-day meal, it also incentivises children to read and learn, thereby developing them into self-sustainable citizens of the nation.

Not just government or NGOs, it is the responsibility of each individual to ensure that children who are the future of the nation have access to nutritious food every day. You can start by supporting Akshaya Patra serve millions of children in schools every day.