The Akshaya Patra Foundation the world’s largest NGO, working towards achieving a hunger free and educated society shares their future plans and current activities through a comprehensive study in their yearly annual records 2013-14.
The Akshaya Patra Mid-Day Meal Program beneficiaries India’s account with a mix of achievements and future goals. The release of a recent government report in India has brought to fore India’s status on achievement of UN Millenium Development Goals (MDG) by 2015. This includes details of malnutrition, education rate, child mortality rate and poverty ratio. The report indicates that India has shown a considerable improvement. This is where The Akshaya Patra’s role as the number one NGO in the Mid-Day-Meal Program is more evident. It implements the Mid-Day Meal program and provides food to children studying in Government and Government aided schools.
Currently functioning in 19 locations and across 9 states, it provides food to 1.3 million children on all school working days. This program has brought visible improvements in the health of a number of children.
In appreciation to the good work, the Akshaya Patra Foundation has contributed to over the years it aims to expand by keeping sustainability in mind so that once the children are fed; there hopes too can be sustained and nurtured.
With constant effort to increase local awareness and achieve sustainability for the future Akshaya Patra plans to spread its reach to new locations such as Bhubaneswar and Rourkela in Odisha, Kanpur, Agra, Lucknow and Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh.
Akshaya Patra’s future plans revolve around the six main focus areas, quality, sustainability, stakeholder satisfaction, efficiency, compliance and awareness.
Quality and food safety are their primary focus. Learning from the past years the foundation has introduced various metrics in every area of operations and service delivery. The other steps undertaken by the foundation include:
· Maintenance of the quality of the meal, standardization of recipes across all locations
· To further improve the quality standards, improvement projects like Kaizen and S5 have been started in different locations.
Their aim is to further focus and improve the core cause of implementing the mid-day meal program by focusing on Income-Expenditure ration so that more money is utilizes towards feeding children. They also plan to have a system of fund allocation so that the expenses are within all allocated budgets.
The plans for the financial year 2013- 14 will see comprehensive developments, improvisations and innovations in areas of Civil Design and Constructions, Equipments, Designing, Planning and Project Management, Purchase and Logistics, Maintenance and Lean Management .
Akshaya Patra’s steps towards improving the Mid-Day Meal Program has contributed to the success of eliminating classroom hunger, improving academic performance, increased enrolment, increased attendance, increased concentration, improved socialization, addressed malnutrition and empowered women.
Along with focusing on the primary Mid-Day Meal Program, Akshaya Patra has been able to dedicate its resources towards disaster relief, feeding drought-hit families in special schools etc. The work of Akshaya Patra has been recognized by the National Steering-cum-Monitoring committee (NSMC) for Mid-Day Meal Program. They have also received global recognition by being ranked the 23rd NGO among the Top 100 NGO’s of the world by The Global Journal.
“Akshaya Patra mission is to simultaneously address childhood hunger and malnutrition and to promote education for underserved children in India. To achieve a society that reflects health, literacy and sustainability it is important to support the children of today. Akshaya Patra thus will tread aggressively yet cautiously to scale up this program to keep the child, the most important stakeholder, happy and hopeful by counting to provide ‘unlimited food foe education.” says Madhu Pandit Dasa, Chairman, & Executive Trustee of Akshaya Patra Foundation.
About Akshaya Patra
Akshaya Patra started off in the year 2000, feeding 1,500 children from a temporary kitchen that cooked food for underprivileged children in government schools. Akshaya Patra was later partnered with the Karnataka government in 2003 under the mid-day meal scheme to act as one of the implementing arms of the government in many regions. The Akshaya Patra Foundation was also registered as a non – profit organisation under the Indian Trusts act, 1882.
Akshaya Patra provides mid-day meals to school children in 20 locations across India and with the central and state governments in 9 states such as Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Orissa, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh. The organization believes that "No child in India shall be deprived of education because of hunger.”
The Akshaya Patra Mid-Day Meal Program beneficiaries India’s account with a mix of achievements and future goals. The release of a recent government report in India has brought to fore India’s status on achievement of UN Millenium Development Goals (MDG) by 2015. This includes details of malnutrition, education rate, child mortality rate and poverty ratio. The report indicates that India has shown a considerable improvement. This is where The Akshaya Patra’s role as the number one NGO in the Mid-Day-Meal Program is more evident. It implements the Mid-Day Meal program and provides food to children studying in Government and Government aided schools.
Currently functioning in 19 locations and across 9 states, it provides food to 1.3 million children on all school working days. This program has brought visible improvements in the health of a number of children.
In appreciation to the good work, the Akshaya Patra Foundation has contributed to over the years it aims to expand by keeping sustainability in mind so that once the children are fed; there hopes too can be sustained and nurtured.
With constant effort to increase local awareness and achieve sustainability for the future Akshaya Patra plans to spread its reach to new locations such as Bhubaneswar and Rourkela in Odisha, Kanpur, Agra, Lucknow and Varanasi in Uttar Pradesh.
Akshaya Patra’s future plans revolve around the six main focus areas, quality, sustainability, stakeholder satisfaction, efficiency, compliance and awareness.
Quality and food safety are their primary focus. Learning from the past years the foundation has introduced various metrics in every area of operations and service delivery. The other steps undertaken by the foundation include:
· Maintenance of the quality of the meal, standardization of recipes across all locations
· To further improve the quality standards, improvement projects like Kaizen and S5 have been started in different locations.
Their aim is to further focus and improve the core cause of implementing the mid-day meal program by focusing on Income-Expenditure ration so that more money is utilizes towards feeding children. They also plan to have a system of fund allocation so that the expenses are within all allocated budgets.
The plans for the financial year 2013- 14 will see comprehensive developments, improvisations and innovations in areas of Civil Design and Constructions, Equipments, Designing, Planning and Project Management, Purchase and Logistics, Maintenance and Lean Management .
Akshaya Patra’s steps towards improving the Mid-Day Meal Program has contributed to the success of eliminating classroom hunger, improving academic performance, increased enrolment, increased attendance, increased concentration, improved socialization, addressed malnutrition and empowered women.
Along with focusing on the primary Mid-Day Meal Program, Akshaya Patra has been able to dedicate its resources towards disaster relief, feeding drought-hit families in special schools etc. The work of Akshaya Patra has been recognized by the National Steering-cum-Monitoring committee (NSMC) for Mid-Day Meal Program. They have also received global recognition by being ranked the 23rd NGO among the Top 100 NGO’s of the world by The Global Journal.
“Akshaya Patra mission is to simultaneously address childhood hunger and malnutrition and to promote education for underserved children in India. To achieve a society that reflects health, literacy and sustainability it is important to support the children of today. Akshaya Patra thus will tread aggressively yet cautiously to scale up this program to keep the child, the most important stakeholder, happy and hopeful by counting to provide ‘unlimited food foe education.” says Madhu Pandit Dasa, Chairman, & Executive Trustee of Akshaya Patra Foundation.
About Akshaya Patra
Akshaya Patra started off in the year 2000, feeding 1,500 children from a temporary kitchen that cooked food for underprivileged children in government schools. Akshaya Patra was later partnered with the Karnataka government in 2003 under the mid-day meal scheme to act as one of the implementing arms of the government in many regions. The Akshaya Patra Foundation was also registered as a non – profit organisation under the Indian Trusts act, 1882.
Akshaya Patra provides mid-day meals to school children in 20 locations across India and with the central and state governments in 9 states such as Karnataka, Andhra Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Orissa, Rajasthan, Tamil Nadu and Uttar Pradesh. The organization believes that "No child in India shall be deprived of education because of hunger.”
