Akshaya Patra Foundation Promoting Education by Feed the Children in India

An Article In Times Of India says that India is expected to miss the crucial UN Millennium Development Goal (MDG), including those related to reduction in poverty, hunger and infant mortality, according to a government report. It indicates-

• While India is expected to lag behind on health indicators, the performance is up to the mark on education front. 
• It is expected to meet the target to ensure that by 2015 children everywhere, boys and girls alike will be able to complete a full course of primary education.
• "Achieving universal primary education is round the corner," the report said.
• The data shows that the country is well set to achieve 100% primary education for children ahead of 2015.
• "Gender parity has already been achieved in primary education (in 2007-08 itself) and the disparity in secondary education is set to disappear by 2015," the report noted.

As for education these are really very motivating and pleasing facts. If  we are on the right track as far as education is concerned all other stations can be reached sooner or later. It instils hope as value of education is well recognized. Advantages of education are not hidden from any one. Be it individual growth or the growth of the society and nation. At the same time it is the single answer to so many socio economic problems. Be it... malnutrition, illiteracy, child labour, preventable diseases, abuse & exploitation, unemployment, social evils or hazard to environment. Here we can rightly quote Mr Nelson Mandela who said that "Education is the most powerful weapon we can use to change the world."

Government has done their part in setting the basic framework of education by opening schools, making education free and by doing other related arrangements. Many awareness programmes through different channels of communication have been run.

Akshaya Patra is contributing in this direction by promoting education by feeding the school children. Akshaya Patra is the world’s largest NGO running mid–day meal programme providing hot and nutritious meal to school children. By providing food Akshaya Patra is attracting children to come to school and also reducing the dropout rate from school. Akshaya Patra’s single meal becomes an incentive for these children and contributes in increasing the attendance. Here the role of Akshaya Patra is very crucial as to make use of the education facilities provided by various government and non government organizations.

Akshaya Patra started their operation by feeding 1500 children in five schools of Bangalore now it has scaled up to 1.3 million children through 19 centres across 9 states of India. This is done through centralized and decentralized model of kitchens. Through centralized kitchen it feeds the children of urban and semi urban areas on the other hand decentralized kitchen is meant for the interior areas which have difficult terrain. Endeavour of Akshaya Patra enables the education to reach many and to the far flung areas.

Gullu, a child from tribal area  of Orissa got attracted to school just because of food. Now he walks five miles per day and attends the school. There are many such stories where parents allowed their children to join school because of Akshaya Patra’s mid day meal.

All this good work has been possible with the collective effort of many. Let this continue and with more vigour so that Akshaya Patra can feed many more children  and support in building the future of India.