Changing the Lives of India's Children
According to the UN, India shares a quarter of the global hunger burden. Nearly 47 million Indian children, about 29% of the world’s malnourished children, suffer from chronic undernutrition or stunting. In addition, almost 3,000 children die daily, due to malnutrition according to a World Bank Report.A recent UNICEF report states that more than 8.1 million Indian children are out of school. At a national level, 29% of Indian school children drop out before completing five years of primary school and 43% drop out before finishing upper primary school. Only 42% of students complete high school. This makes India among the top 5 nations for school dropouts for children in primary school, with 1.4 million children, aged 6 to 11, not attending school. Too often, poverty forces children into various types of child labor. Poverty reduces food security, increases hunger and thus negatively impacts a child’s ability to learn, despite having access to a quality education. Also, a large majority of foreign aid is geared towards educational programs. However, solely investing in education without addressing the underlying causes of low education rates greatly reduces the efficacy of aid
This is where Akshaya Patra Foundation USA come in. About Us Akshaya Patra means ‘inexhaustible vessel’ in Sanskrit. We drive social impact and do it in innovative ways. We build bridges, foster individual capabilities & empower people while using technologically innovative ways to scale our program. Our vision is ‘No child in India shall be deprived of education because of hunger’.
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From our humble beginnings providing 1,500 free meals to underprivileged children in 2000, Akshaya Patra has grown to be the world’s largest secular school lunch program, serving 1.8 million nutritious meals daily to Indian children aged 6-14 years old. Our 60 ISO-standard kitchens make between 10,000 to 250,000 meals in 6 hours and 800+ trucks transport these meals to 19,257 schools, 6 days a week. The Akshaya Patra Foundation works in partnership with the
