Fight Classroom Hunger, but the right way

Fighting malnutrition, especially among children, is now a challenge that transcends all classes of society and regions. But, a significant proportion of school-going children in India now need not worry as they are now able to escape the scourge of hunger and malnutrition, thanks to the efforts of The Akshaya Patra Foundation.

The food supplied from the 34 kitchens of Akshaya Patra across the country is not merely cooked to fill the stomachs, but it is a wholesome balanced meal that supplies all the necessary nutrition. The food that the children get in their mid-day meals are fortified with the required nutrients necessary for both physical and mental development of children. The food is fortified with nutrients like vitamin A, B vitamins, vitamin D, folic acid, iodine and iron. Food fortification is done to decrease the occurrence of nutrient deficiencies. It is extremely important for children in their growing years to get these nutrients in their food.

You could play a role in this endeavour by donating for education in India and ensuring that children from across the country benefit, both in terms of their dietary needs as well as their educational needs.

Philosophies driving the kitchens

With its primary aim to supply high quality and safe food from its 34 kitchens, Akshaya Patra has introduced various metrics in every area of its operations and service delivery. It has partnered with different organisations to review the quality of its mid-day meals prepared and served to more than 1.6 million children every day. To maintain the quality of the meal, it has standardised the recipes.

Say Kaizen and 5S, the Japanese business philosophies, and the ones that come into your mind would be corporate majors like Toyota. But, it's part and parcel of Akshaya Patra's kitchen operations. To improve the quality standards, Japanese management technique of Kaizen and 5S, the method of workplace organisation that uses five Japanese words: seiri, seiton, seiso, seiketsu, and shitsuke. They describe ways to organise a workspace for efficiency and effectiveness by identifying and storing the items used. With the Foundation focused on Employee Health and Safety too, it holds activities to increase the hygiene standards and improve safety and health.

A top NGO like Akshaya Patra which has the wherewithal to ensure the food is balanced, can be trusted in ensuring that the children get the right kind of meals. A meal that is not well-balanced would result in children growing up malnourished. A food without the micro-nutrients would affect the mental development of children too and its impact would be visible in adulthood.

Keeping Children healthy

With the government having so many things to focus on, NGOs have a role in ensuring that the ills caused by unhealthy foods are taught to children and their parents to ensure they get the right kind of food.

The Foundation, over the last 17 years, has been continuously trying to reach as many children as possible. Today it feeds over 1.6 million children across 12 states in the country.

Make your school environment-friendly for children with physical disabilities

The specially abled children have a sensitivity like no one else. They are often more tolerant, accommodating and friendly, if you just give them a chance. While there are special schools for the hearing and visually impaired, there are still several other specially abled children who can be accommodated and accepted in regular schools with some efforts.

As your students are back to school for another session, how can you make your school environment more friendly for these special children? We have got some ideas. 

A welcoming reception 

Children are more emotional than we think. If they get a drift of a friendly environment at school right from the entrance, they start to feel comfortable. You can ensure this happens by making your reception area equipped with things that make the specially abled children feel at home. 

- If there are any steps at your entrance area, do place a handrail on both sides of these steps since children with mobility challenges put extra caution for going up and down the stairs. 

- You can get a metal ramp placed at the entrance of the building. The width of a wheelchair is usually 60 cm so the metal ramp can be made slightly wider than that. It is often an inexpensive gesture that goes a long way for specially abled children. 

- Install a bell with a symbol of wheelchair or walking stick at the entrance so any child needing assistance with walking may call for help easily.

- Make sure your classrooms, toilets are built on plane surfaces to make them easily accessible for special children. 

Training the staff for special children

Making your school really friendly for special children is not limited to keeping hearing, walking or visual aids. Ensure that all the assistance staff as well as teachers are sensitised towards the needs of children with physical disabilities. The staff must know the basics of hearing and walking aids along with being kind and gentle while dealing with such children. The special children are otherwise like any other child. Akshaya Patra, an NGO that has played a vital role in implementing the Mid-Day Meal Scheme in government schools in India, also serves in the Deaf and Dumb Industrial School in Nagpur Maharashtra. Several children from Central India regularly come to this school due to the friendly environment created by the staff and the wholesome lunch provided here. 

Sensitising other children 

One of the roles of NGOs in India is to teach the society about how to treat special children. A similar sensitisation is needed in all schools where teachers counsel and develop a sense of accommodation and acceptance for special children among students. They can be taught through role plays, small skits and stories of courage so whenever there are any specially abled children, the students are ready to welcome them with open arms. Older children can be encouraged to donate for education in India or use Internet for running online fundraising campaigns for small school projects for specially abled children.

Feed the Hungry Today for a Better Tomorrow

Hunger in India is severe. According to Global Hunger Index 2016 report, 39% of India’s children are stunted. What is stunted growth? It refers to reduced growth and development of a child due to (but not limited to) poor nutrition and unhygienic practices. And to add to this, children who are stunted are also believed to experience health issues as they grow.

Today, as we read about it and make ourselves aware of the situation, we all have an opportunity to feed the hungry children – an opportunity to feed children today, for a better tomorrow. At Akshaya Patra, we are striving to achieve two UN Sustainable Development Goals: Zero Hunger and Quality Education. As mentioned in the first paragraph, the organisation is working towards eliminating classroom hunger through Mid-Day Meal Programme (in partnership with Government of India) – an initiative aimed at improving ‘poor nutrition’ levels among school children.

Most of our beneficiaries are dependent on just one square meal served by Akshaya Patra – the meals are freshly cooked in our centralised and decentralised kitchens. As much as mid-day meal acts as an incentive, it is also important for Akshaya Patra that children attend school, learn and become independent in the future. Mid-Day Meal paints an optimistic approach for many families to send their children to school whereas for Akshaya Patra, hygiene and quality are of utmost priority that are not compromised with during preparation of mid-day meals. How does Akshaya Patra manage serving millions of meals on a daily basis? It is due to the support from government, donors and corporates decision to sponsor children that the organisation has been able to effectively operate the Mid-Day Meal Programme across the length and breadth of India.

To maintain effective delivery of mid-day meals, the Foundation uses GPS enabled customised vehicles that can support food temperature. With a growing network of delivery vans and distribution staff, the organisation has been able to deliver meals to over 1.6 million school children across 11 states in India.

The fight to hunger needs to be carried out with a concrete plan. You can play your part by supporting Akshaya Patra from wherever you are. The Food for Education mission aims at realising that both food and education cannot be pursued separately. They need to be seen and sought together. If you think you can be part of a noble cause such as this, you may engage in charity fundraising and donate to charity and win income tax exemption.

10 Ingredients that make Mid-Day Meal a Healthy Eat!

The 21st century has made us more food conscious than ever. We take interest in understanding the importance of healthy food, nutrition intake, and calories and so on. To simplify the food theories, we have even created food pyramids and graphs based on age groups. Today, we all know what kind of food is acceptable for children and what isn’t.

As an NGO, Akshaya Patra aims to feed the children the right amount of mid-day meals with sufficient nutritional values. We believe mid-day meal benefits every child. Before we share our little secret on keeping children healthy, here’s a bit of history on Nutrition. The word ‘Nutrition’ means ‘nourishment’ and first originated in Latin during early 15th century. Centuries later, when hunger was identified as an issue, a prefix Mal which means ‘bad’ was used to describe poor nutritional levels – malnutrition.

For Akshaya Patra, it is important that children receive the right amount of nutrients in their food. Here’s a list of ingredients used in mid-day meals along with their nutrition value:

To break the cycle of hunger among children, a country must do a lot – introduce nutritional school lunch programmes, ensure initiatives are reaching the target group, prioritise education, stabilise low-income families with subsidies and health care benefits, and many more. Akshaya Patra’s menu of mid-day meals is such that it covers the basics of nutrition intake and calories, making it one of the best diets for children!

Besides clothing and shelter, food is one of the basic needs for humans. We have reached a point in time where most of us are able to afford these basic needs however, lack of food among children continues to be a persistent issue. Let’s act to ensure children receive the two most important elements that can help them grow – food and education. Sponsor a child by donating Rs 950 and be assured that he or she will receive wholesome mid-day meals for an entire academic year!

How Online Fundraising Campaign at Akshaya Patra Works

Fundraising is of immense importance for non-governmental organisations (NGOs) as these organisations, despite the fact that they too contribute heavily towards the socioeconomic development of the country, are not at the liberty of using the tax-payer’s money … at least, not directly. Indirectly, the Government does give tax breaks or provides funds or subsidies, especially when it is also a stakeholder.

In order to implement the Mid-day Meal Programme in schools, for instance, the Government has got into a partnership with NGOs like The Akshaya Patra Foundation. In such cases, it shares the cost of the programme or provides land and other requisites. Even in such cases, NGOs have to develop fundraising strategies for both, sustenance and expansion.

Online Fundraising for Akshaya Patra

At Akshaya Patra, we understand that online fundraising has more to it than simply accepting donations online, hence we make a conscious attempt to reach out to as many people as possible through our campaigns using our website and different social media platforms. It also has something to do with the fact that for an NGO, a steady stream of funds is of great importance.

If you want to organise a fundraiser for us at your workplace or school, we’ll be glad to help. You just need to get in touch with us. What if someone wants to help by raising funds for the cause, but cannot due to time constraints. In such cases, a much easier option is to go for online fundraising.

In a broad sense, the concept also includes donations raised by resorting to call-to-action, wherein direct mailers, social media posts, etc., are designed with the intention to bring donor to the landing page from where he can donate. These are the options the organisation uses to raise funds. Beyond these options, there is one option that you can use to raise funds for Akshaya Patra, and that is to create an online fundraising campaign on the organisation’s website.

You have the option of either donating to an existing campaign or you can create your own online campaign by visiting our website. When you create a customized campaign, which will have a title and the target amount of your choosing, you can share it with your friends and family via email or social network. It won’t take more than a couple of minutes from your busy schedule and you’ll become a role model for other people.

In essence, you will help Akshaya Patra reach more people and raise funds for our cause, i.e., to eliminate classroom hunger, by starting and promoting an online fundraising campaign.

As of now, we are feeding over 1.5 million children across 25 locations in the country. Our mission is to reach 5 million children by 2020 and that, we know, will be an uphill task unless we have more people on board.

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Go through Gaurav Warman's Experience of fundraising: akshayapatra-ngo-india.blogspot.in/2016/03/fundraising-for-ngo-akshaya-patra.html

The mid-day meal programme – Food for the soul

We always think of the happy, shining faces of young children as they eat their fill of the mid-day meal provided by The Akshaya Patra Foundation. But very rarely do we think of the joy and satisfaction it brings to the people involved in this venture. Not just the staff and employees of The Akshaya Patra Foundation, but the other irreplaceable individuals that help this process work. From teachers, physicians and volunteers, these kind souls have seen frail children transform into healthy children before their eyes, filled with hope and renewed vigor, a sight they cannot help but be moved by.