Why do India’s top NGOs emphasize Mid-Day Meal in schools?

A recent UNICEF report says that more than 80 million children drop out of school before they complete the age of eight years while over 8 million children are already out of school. In contrast, when 1.6 million children in India are benefitted by a top NGO, the same number of children attends school. That’s the impact of Mid-Day Meal Programme that’s run in government schools in India.

Mid-day meals and school attendance 

One of India’s top NGOs Akshaya Patra strives to make both food and education accessible for children since these are the two founding factors of the growth of children. Mid-day meals are directly associated with whether children would attend schools and make the best of the education right from reading and writing in their mother tongue Hindi or Gujarati or participating in extra-curricular activities. The government is working with some top NGOs in Uttar Pradesh, Maharashtra, Odisha, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and others to ensure that mid-day meals are served in as many schools as possible so more children could be brought back to school. School administrations have testified that their attendance is going up every year ever since they started serving wholesome lunch in the premises. 

Mid-day meals and children’s dreams 

Several stories of hope at Akshaya Patra are testimonies to the principle that when basic nourishment is available easily to children, they are more likely to dream big and have goals in life. Hundreds of beneficiaries receiving wholesome lunch at school share their dreams of becoming engineers, sports persons, doctors or teachers.

Mid-day meals and growth

A mid-day meal is one of the three most important meals of the day. Families that can only afford meals twice in a day, are typically those who would rather put their children to work so more meals could be earned for the whole family. As a result, many school-going children are forced to drop out since either they are needed at home to take care of their siblings when both parents go to work or they need to work in order to help the family financially. This often becomes a vicious cycle where meal becomes a reason for children to drop out of schools. Thus, back in the year 2000, Akshaya Patra, which is today one of India’s top NGOs in the field, realised that if this gap is filled, the problem of school drop-outs could be solved. The organisation realised that there are several avenues to getting education. Apart from the usual activities at schools like learning Math or Hindi, if mid-day meal is made part of attending school, it could become a major incentive in bringing students back. This would directly affect a healthy growth of the children both physically and mentally while parents would be more willing to send all the children in the family to schools. 

You can make a big difference into this mission by donating to charity.

Your Contribution to an NGO can make Uttar Pradesh Hunger-Free

There are several parts of India that battle with challenges of nutrition, sanitation, electricity, education and the likes. But nutrition tops them all since lack of it can be life-threatening. India’s most populous state Uttar Pradesh is home to over 1,210 million people. Now imagine the volume of work and the challenges the state government has to handle every single day.

Considering the situation in UP, children’s NGO in Lucknow, Akshaya Patra comes as a saviour to root out the problem of child hunger.  With 26 kitchens pan India, it has set itself out on a mission to provide children “Food for Education” with the help of its programme to deliver mid-day meals in Uttar Pradesh. 

The organisation aims at reaching out underfed children along with bringing them to classrooms. Non-profit organisation Akshaya Patra has its two locations with state-of-the-art centralised kitchens to provide mid-day meal in Uttar Pradesh - one in Lucknow and the other in Vrindavan. And today, we feed 2,32,615 children across 3,021 schools throughout UP. Akshaya Patra’s NGO in Lucknow, which was established in March 2015, satisfies the nutritional needs of 1,00,459 children across 1,011 schools. 

But to make the entire Uttar Pradesh hunger-free, we just cannot limit our efforts to this point! We need YOUR help too and here’s how you can help in making this happen:

Why should you feed the hungry?

According to an Annual Health Survey, Uttar Pradesh has 34 of 57 Indian districts to have been identified under poor health index. Based on severity, a UNDP report states that Uttar Pradesh falls among the states having hunger at an ‘alarming’ state. At a global scale, UN World Food Programme also reports that over 100 million children in developing countries are underweight.

Help in getting the word out

When you do something for others selflessly, you do a service to yourself and make your life worthwhile. This NGO in Lucknow gives you numerous ways to do so. You can Sign up as its Cyber Advocate and become an online volunteer, set up banners and engage people on online social media or write a blog. 

Help in raising funds

Buzz Aldrin had said - “If we can conquer space, we can conquer childhood hunger.” So if we can reach the moon, we can also conquer the battle against hunger - Together.  With this belief and your help, you can help us with fundraising activities for our NGO in Lucknow by creating your own campaign, at home, in school or in your community.

With an amount of just Rs. 950, you get to make positive a difference in the life of one child for an entire academic year.

This way, your help won’t just lead to curbing one problem today, but would also help in avoiding many problems in future! Besides hunger, Mid-Day Meal Programme of Akshaya Patra aims to curb classroom hunger, increase school enrolment and attendance, improve socialisation among castes, and empower women through employment.

Spare a moment to pledge a donation, and you might create another story of hope! Nurture a life today.