About NGO:

Striving to end hunger of underserved children in the 6 to 16 years age group and facilitate their education, The Akshaya Patra Foundation, a not-for-profit, Bangalore-based secular trust evolved a free lunch program in schools in the year 2000. What started as a pilot project in five schools in Bangalore, feeding 1,500 children, has now grown into a mammoth endeavor reaching out to over 1.3 million children in over 8000 schools in 19 locations, across 8 states in India, day after day. This program is a strategic intervention in education aimed at unlocking the vicious and self-perpetuating cycle of hunger and poverty. The foundation is an eloquent demonstration of what an organization with public private partnership and engagement of the civic society can achieve in a short period of time: a cost effective, scalable solution, not to mention the largest, and certainly the most innovative school meal program in the world

Fund Usage:

The donations received from the marathon will be used to provide freshly cooked nutritious meals to 50,000 children in schools everyday for the entire school year.

Impact:

Chabbi Nayak is studying in the fifth standard in a school at Puri, Orissa. Her father is an umbrella repairer. Both her parents are affected by leprosy. She was often forced to beg on the streets for food everyday. Education and going to school was a distant dream. However with Akshyapatra meal, Chabbi's parents were motivated to send her to school everyday. She comes to school regularly now and has made considerable progress in studies. As she waits eagerly for lunch time when she will get her only meal of the day, she is thrilled about sitting and eating together with many other friends. When asked what she would want to become in future, the innocent girl says with a sparkle in her eyes "a teacher". Chabbi can now dream of becoming a teacher- something that Akshaya Patra has helped her to do by taking her out of despair and infusing hope into her.

Page Url :
http://www.unitedwaymumbai.org/ngo179_akshayapatra.htm

Founded Year: 2001

Cause category: Education