HOW WE WORK
HOW WE WORK
AKSHAYA PATRA INDIA
works to tackle classroom hunger, child malnutrition and educational access by making and delivering daily meals to schools across India. GMSP supported Akshaya Patra to provide school meals to 550 children for one year in three rural villages.
children fed
every day
1.8 million
15,000
schools
receive school
lunches
CHALLENGE
Malnutrition accounts for 50 per cent of
child deaths in India. Every day, over eight million children are forced into work to earn enough money to feed themselves and to supplement the family income. This means they are at work when they should be in school.
In addition, gender bias means that if parents had to choose, they would most likely send their boys to school. Girls who do go to school are more likely to drop out earlier.
Food insecurity directly affects school attendance rates and with little or no education, children have limited life prospects.
ACTION
Akshaya Patra provides fresh nutritious daily meals to children in schools across India. Leveraging technology to expand its reach, Akshaya Patra’s state of the art kitchens serve wholesome food to over 1.8 million children across 12 states in India.
In partnership with the government, and with support from corporate entities and individual donors, Akshaya Patra is working to fulfil its mission that “no child should be deprived of education due to hunger”.
The meals were found to encourage parents to send their children to school. Not only do the meals tackle hunger, but they also help decrease child labour rates, empower boys and girls to remain in school and help children’s cognitive and physical development.