International Labour Day: What makes Akshaya Patra a great place to work

International Labour Day is celebrated on May 1^st each year to celebrate labour unions and commit to the cause of providing access to safe and dignified labour opportunities to the workers. Akshaya Patra too believes in this need to provide well for its employees and so as part of its work to feed a hungry child, the Foundation also ensures that every employee enjoys equal potential for growth, safe and dignified working conditions and equal pay regardless of gender. With a total employment rate of over 4,000 men and 2,200 women (as per January 2015 records), the organisation ensures that there is an environment of mutual trust and fulfilment between the Foundation and its employees. Through the generosity of those who donate online, the Foundation is able to provide permanent, sustainable employment to this dedicated staff.

On International Labour Day, let's look back at how Akshaya Patra looks after its employees. Each employee enjoys the opportunity for equal growth in the organisation. In fact so much is the satisfaction of working with an organisation like this, and helping to feed a hungry child, that many employees have stayed over a decade with the Foundation. The Foundation also ensures that for the lowest paid staff, the organisation adheres to the minimum wage requirements set down by the Central and State Governments. Besides this, the Foundation also follows other statutory laws such as the Payment of Gratuity Act (1972), Employee State Insurance Act (1948) and the Employee Provident Fund and Miscellaneous Provisions Act (1952). Such is their belief in the cause, and their satisfaction at work that many employees avail the option to donate online to help reduce classroom hunger in India.

Part of International Labour Day is the recognition of equal opportunity and pay regardless of gender. Akshaya Patra employs women in almost all 24 kitchen units across the country where they assist on cooking the food to feed a hungry child on every school day. In the decentralised kitchens located in remote areas like Baran and Nayagarh, the daily mid-day meal is prepared by women employed from local self-help groups. Currently the Foundation provides permanent employment to over 1,400 women from these self-help groups. Through this employment the women receive steady income and also higher social standing in their community. To help the Foundation continue to provide gainful employment to these loyal men and women, donate online and support the cause of this organisation.

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Ngo in Bangalore provides food for education

The Akshaya Patra Foundation has its headquarters as an ngo in Bangalore that currently feeds over 1.4 million children across India every day. The Foundation today has kitchens in 24 locations, across 10 states of India, and caters to the needs of 10,770 Government and Government aided schools in India. Born of the vision that 'No child in India shall be deprived of education because of hunger' the organisation is currently moving towards fulfilling its mission of feeding 5 million children by 2020. By the goodness of those who choose to donate for food, the Foundation continues to reach out to more beneficiaries every day.

The ngo in Bangalore started out in the year 2000, feeding just 1,500 children across 5 schools in the city. Today The Akshaya Patra Foundation runs six kitchens in the state of Karnataka - two in Bangalore, and one each in Mysore, Mangalore, Hubli and Bellary. All six of these kitchens follow the centralised kitchen model, while four of them have received ISO22000:2005 certification. The centralised kitchens ate highly mechanised, efficient structures that have been fitted with the latest in cooking technology. These kitchens often have the capacity cook over 100,000 meals within a few hours' time. These kitchens are fitted with roti (Indian flatbread) making machines, huge cauldrons to cook rice, dal (lentils curry) and other vegetable dishes and much more. Individuals or corporates who like to donate for food do so either in the form of monetary compensation, or through contributions for kitchen equipment, delivery vehicles etc.

The ngo in Bangalore operates out of its HK Hill and Vasanthapura kitchens. Overall The Akshaya Patra Foundation feeds 463,682 children across 2,629 schools in the area. The food cooked in these kitchens undergoes a stringent series of quality checks before they packed and loaded for delivery to the schools. Even during the time of delivery, utmost care is taken to ensure that the food is not damaged in anyway. All the Foundation's delivery vans are custom designed with a honeycomb structure that prevents the food from spilling, and are also constructed with a puffed body that insulates the food from heat and dust. In tune with their technologically advanced systems, the Foundation has also fitted their vans with a GPS tracking system that ensures the food reaches the schools safely, and allows the most optimum route to be chosen during transportation. To contribute toward the programme and donate for food for education, click here.

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Akshaya Patra initiating Social Innovation Fellows Programme

The mid-day meal programme NGO - Akshaya Patra is glad to announce that it is set to initiate its Social Innovation Fellows Programme. The Social Innovation Fellows Programme will be a paid one-year programme. It will be a platform for all the select applicants to create potential social change and along with developing their individual leadership trait. It will be an opportunity for all aspiring social entrepreneurs from across India to receive valuable inputs and knowledge from Akshaya Patra. 

The selected Fellows will be part of the Akshaya Patra Innovation Team. As a part of the Social Innovation Fellows Programme the participants will be responsible for designing and executing various innovation initiatives across different functional divisions within the organisation. Social Innovation Fellows Programme will be a platform for the Fellows to gain first-hand understanding of the social sector and also it will be an opportunity to learn how to expand an impactful initiative by keeping in mind its sustenance. 

Apply Now and take the first step towards a meaningful entrepreneurial career. To know more about the Social Innovation Fellows Programme click here.

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Support an ngo in Cuttack to feed children

The Akshaya Patra ngo in Cuttack was started in 2014. The Cuttack kitchen provides the Akshaya Patra mid day meal in Odisha to 4,000 children across 28 schools. Inaugurated by the Chief Minister of Odisha Naveen Patnaik, this centralised kitchen is fitted with the latest in cooking machinery to produce tasty, hygienic food in large quantities every day. The kitchen was sponsored by The Kusuma Foundation, and the inauguration was also attended by General Surat Singh Sandhu (Chairman of The Kusuma Foundation) and Pankaj Vinayak Sharma (Country Leader of The Kusuma Foundation). The kitchen was also sponsored by RC Infinity Foundation (Kolkata), NALCO, Odisha Mining Corporation and LIC Golden Jubilee Foundation. The kitchen is equipped to reach out to many more children with the daily, nutritious mid-day meal. Donate online to help the Foundation alleviate classroom hunger in Cuttack.

This ngo in Cuttack is Akshaya Patra's third centralised kitchen in the state of Odisha. Equipped with boilers, cold storage to keep the vegetables fresh, rice cleaning machines to efficiently clean the rice in a quick and error-free manner, custom designed utensils to cook food with and conveyor belts, this kitchen maintains the best standards of quality while cooking the mid day meal in Odisha. Capable of cooking huge quantities, the Cuttack kitchen can cook 5.5. tonnes of rice, 1.2 tonnes of dal (lentil curry), and 3.5 tonnes of vegetable dishes in one day. The kitchens are also aided with 20 specially designed meal distribution vehicles which are fitted with Akshaya Patra's well-known honeycomb structure that prevents the food from spilling, and a puffed body that insulates the van against dust and heat, ensuring that the food is delivered to the schools in the best condition. Donate online towards kitchen equipment, vehicles and more to help Akshaya Patra reach out to more children with the programme.

This ngo in Cuttack is Akshaya Patra's 21^st centralised kitchen. Besides this, the mid day meal in Odisha is served through the centralised kitchens at Rourkela and Puri, and the decentralised kitchen at Nayagarh. Overall, the kitchens in Odisha feed 125,242 children across 1,461 Government and Government aided schools. The food served in these kitchens includes rice, dal, roti (Indian flatbread), sambar (lentil based vegetable stew) and tasty vegetable preparations. Choose to donate online to Odisha in order to help Akshaya Patra fulfil its mission that 'No child in India shall be deprived of education because of hunger.'

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AUMA India donated vehicle to Akshaya Patra

As part of the CSR (Corporate Social Responsibility) programme, AUMA India donated vehicles to Akshaya Patra. AUMA India is one of India's largest manufacturers of electric actuators and valve gearboxes for the automation of Industrial valves and dampers.

The two meal delivery vehicles - a Swaraj Mazda and a Bolero have been customised with insulation to maintain the correct temperature of the cooked food during transportation to the schools. These two vans will aid in transporting freshly cooked food to across 40 schools thereby benefitting about 4,000 school children every day.

Arvind Goel, Managing Director of AUMA India along with Akshaya Patra representatives namely Chanchalapathi Dasa, Vice Chairman and Shridhar Venkat, CEO were present during the inauguration of AUMA India donated vehicles to Akshaya Patra.

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Akshaya Patra on the National Geographic Channel's 'NGC Mega Kitchens' series

In an exciting development, Akshaya Patra will be featured on a special telecast premiere of the National Geographic Channel's documentary series 'NGC Mega Kitchens'! Titled 'Akshaya Patra - Shiksha ka Mahabhog', this is the pilot episode of a twelve part series.

The episode will showcase how Akshaya Patra, which provides food as part of the Government Mid-Day Meal Scheme, feeds the tasty, nutritious and hygienic meals to over 1.4 million children across India every day.

The episode will air on 27th April at 9pm on the National Geographic Channel. Watch a sneak peek of this special episode here

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Akshaya Patra receives Chanakya Awards

 

 The latest NGO news has Akshaya Patra receiving the prestigious Chanakya Award for NGO of the Year 2015. This award was given as a part of the awards ceremony held by PRCI (Public Relations Council of India) during its 9th Global Communication Conclave 2015 on 14th March at New Delhi. Akshaya Patra winning Chanakya Award was a testimony to all its sincere efforts in implementing the mid-day meal programme across India.

As captured in the latest NGO news, the theme for this year’s conclave was 'Communicate to Connect'. Aside Akshaya Patra being conferred with Chanakya Award, the NGO also received a bag full of awards in almost all categories of communication. It received Platinum for the Annual Report 2013-14,  Gold for the video 'The Possibilities' and Newsletter, Silver for 2015 Calendar, Bronze for Social Media Campaign of the year #HungryForSchool, and an Appreciation Award for Corporate Advertisement for the video, 'What can you get for Rs. 750?'.

Read more on this latest NGO news at Akshaya Patra wins Chanakya Award 2015.

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Akshaya Patra provides food for education

There is an NGO that aims to provide food for education to underserved children in India. The name of this organisation is The Akshaya Patra Foundation. Established in 2000, this NGO started its first kitchen in Bangalore, Karnataka providing the mid-day meal programme to just 1,500 children across 5 Government schools in the area. Born out of a vision that 'No child in India shall be deprived of education because of hunger' the Foundation now feeds over 1.4 million children across 24 locations, and 10,770 schools in India every day. But the Foundation still drives on to fulfill its mission of feeding 5 million children by 2020. To realise this goal, the support of the community, corporate sector and Government are crucial. Online donation to ngo website will go a long way to helping fulfil these dreams.

No child can concentrate on studying with an empty stomach. That is why Akshaya Patra works to provide food for education to children in India. By providing them with the nutritious mid-day meal on every school day, children have an incentive to attend school. Parents are also more encouraged to allow their children to attend class rather than spend their day working and earning money for the family, since they won't have to worry about feeding an extra mouth that day. This mid-day meal scheme brings the children to school and gives them the energy and motivation to study hard through the day. With their basic need of hunger met, children can turn their attention to other things like their goals and ambitions. Very often beneficiaries of the programme express their desire to study and get a good job, so that they can help extricate their family from the cycle of hunger and poverty in which they live. The interesting thing is that it doesn't take much help keep a child in school. By contributing Rs. 750 in an online donation to NGO the Foundation can feed a child for an entire year.

Food for education is the right of every child. It gives them the choice of getting educated over years of child labour. The Akshaya Patra mid-day meal programme has proved to have an excellent impact on the lives of the beneficiaries. In addition to improving school enrollment and daily classroom attendance, it has also improved the nutritional standards of the children, improved their attention span, concentration and energy levels, helped reduce social barriers like caste hierarchy, and also helped improve the children's social skills. By providing a mid-day meal the children develop beyond textbook education. Make an online donation to NGO to help end classroom hunger in India.

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Opening of Akshaya Patra NGO in Lucknow

Making a contribution towards the cause of eliminating classroom hunger is easy through this NGO in Lucknow. Started in the year 2000, The Akshaya Patra Foundation provides the mid-day meal to Government school children with the vision that 'no child in India shall be deprived of education because of hunger'. It opened its latest kitchen in Lucknow in March 2015. This centralised kitchen operates utilising the donations for children to provide them with the tasty, nutritious daily mid-day meal.

There are two kinds of kitchens constructed to carry out the Foundation's operations. The organisation runs 22 centralised kitchens which are fitted with the latest machinery which allows for large scale cooking in a highly efficient manner with no compromise on the quality of food. In two locations (Baran and Nayagarh), the Foundation runs decentralised kitchens. These kitchens are run in locations where infrastructure and road connectivity poses a problem. These kitchens are run by local Women Self Help Groups trained by personnel from the Foundation.

The Akshaya Patra Foundation currently feeds over 1.4 million children in Government and Government aided schools every day. From this the NGO in Lucknow reaches out to 11,401 students across 109 schools on each working day. This highly mechanised kitchen is the second in Uttar Pradesh and was inaugurated by the state's Chief Minister Akhilesh Yadav. This is the 24^th location in which Akshaya Patra has established its presence. In order to reach its mission of feeding 5 million children by 2020, the Foundation requires support through volunteering and donations for children, so that one day there will be enough food for every child in India.

Despite the exponential growth the Foundation has seen in the last 15 years, the priority of quality in the face of quantity has not been sacrificed. Each of the kitchens follows strict Food Safety Management Systems and other improvement strategies like Kaizen and Six Sigma to constantly improve the operations processes. Of these 24 locations, 11 kitchens are already ISO 22000:2005 certified, while the rest are under certification.

The NGO in Lucknow has been equipped with state-of-the-art kitchen machinery that is capable of cooking upto 60,000 rotis, 10,000 litres of dal, and 7 tonnes of cooked rice in just two hours. Given the scale of cooking that can be undertaken in this kitchen The Akshaya Patra Foundation intends to increase the number of children benefitting in this location to 100,000 in the coming months. In order to ensure sustained growth the Foundation will rely on donations for children, to fulfil its dream of providing unlimited food for education to the children of India. To help the Foundation eliminate classroom hunger in India, donate here.

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Akshaya Patra kitchens gears up for next academic year

The tale of Akshaya Patra kitchens are well known to all. But what do these kitchens do during the school vacations? All the kitchens across every location operate tirelessly to ensure that mid-day meals are prepared hygienically keeping the nutritious element  intact. Cooking millions of plates of meal is no small task. Certainly, maintenance of kitchen is a huge task too and hence it is taken care of during the summer vacation time of the schools. As children enjoy their holidays after exams, Akshaya Patra kitchens set to get a maintenance overhaul. Here is a brief on few of the kitchen activities that goes on during this period:

Vrindavan kitchen in-charge, Prashanth Kumar M.B. tells that the kitchen will not come to a complete halt during the vacation time. It will continue to feed 22,000 Anganwadi children in and around Agra city. Alongside the kitchen will undergo overhauling of machineries, regular maintenance and repair work and taking up projects to increase cooking capacity.

In-charge of Akshaya Patra kitchens in Bangalore and Bellary confirm that both the kitchens at Bangalore will be functional during the school holidays to adhere to the request of Government of Karnataka to provide food in drought prone areas of Bangalore. Lucknow kitchen in-charge Sunil Kumar Mehta says that this kitchen will be completely engaged in maintenance work related to flooring along with water proofing of the kitchen.

The agenda of each kitchen may differ across 24 locations but the crux of all the activities done during the summer holidays is to ensure that every time children are served with healthy and hygienic mid-day meal. 

Click here to read NGO blog - What’s Planned This Summer Vacation?

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World Health Day 2015: Prioritising food safety at Akshaya Patra

 

To celebrate the beginning of the World Health Organisation, 7^th April is observed as World Health Day. The theme chosen for World Health Day 2015 is 'From farm to plate, make food safe'.

All over the world making sufficient food available to the underserved is prioritised, but not enough attention is paid to providing safe food. The Akshaya Patra Foundation puts food safety before every other priority in its mid-day meal programme. The Foundation goes to huge lengths to ensure that the food being served to over 1.4 million children each day across India is not just enough to fill their bellies, but has been cooked safely to nurture their growth.

At each stage of the programme there are several measures that Akshaya Patra adopts to ensure absolute food safety in its mid-day meal programme.

At the stage of procuring the raw materials, Akshaya Patra implements Supplier Quality Management Systems (SQMS) to ensure that all the suppliers chosen meet the Foundation's high standards of selection, qualification and rating. Even after selecting the supplier, the raw material is accepted only after a thorough checking.

The raw material (vegetables) are washed and cut, before being put in cold storage till it's time to begin the cooking process. The vegetables are sorted in an efficient 'First in, First out' method that ensures freshness of the produce.

Akshaya Patra only uses 304 grade stainless steel for its vessels, the best for cooking and storing food safely. In addition, the kitchen equipment like trolleys, rice chutes, dal/sambar tanks etc are put through a steam sterilisation procedure before cooking. 10 of Akshaya Patra kitchens are ISO 22000:2005 certified.

During the cooking process too, hygiene is upheld at every point in the kitchen. The kitchen follows a strict regimen of daily showers, using protective gear like gloves, gum boots, caps, masks and more, and the kitchen also has hygiene charts placed strategically around the area for more information. All the kitchens have Production Supervisors who implement and maintain Food Safety Management Systems in all of Akshaya Patra's 24 locations.

Once the food is cooked, it is loaded onto Akshaya Patra's meal delivery vans for delivery. These vans are specially designed to retain the freshness of the food. Its puffed body maintains the correct temperature while the honeycomb structure fitted within prevents spillage.

Aside from this, improvement in the form of regular training, feedback and strategies like Kaizen, Six Sigma and CI Projects are frequently implemented at Akshaya Patra. 10 of Akshaya Patra kitchens are ISO 22000:2005 certified.

Food safety is crucial to the healthy development of every nation, and Akshaya Patra leaves no stone unturned in its goal of someday providing safe, healthy food to each and every underserved child in India. With your support we will never falter.

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