The Akshaya Patra Foundation's humble story began in June 2000 with a school mid-day meal programme feeding 1500 children in 5 schools in and around the city of Bangalore. At a time when there was no State run school meal programme in the State of Karnataka, a southern Indian State, youngsters struggled to get into classrooms when they could be out working and surviving. Those that did manage to come into the classroom would struggle to keep attention as they were often hungry and seriously malnourished.
After seeing the success of our endeavors in the Bangalore area, The Akshaya Patra Foundation was repeatedly approached by individuals, teachers and State Governments to address the issue of malnutrition amongst India's youngsters and the impact this was having on the educational achievements of a whole generation. This pressure was the impetus for the growth of The Akshaya Patra Foundation as the largest NGO for children providing mid day meals in India. A growth that we can today be proud of and continue to build on.
In early 2001 The Akshaya Patra Foundation was called in to testify to the Supreme Court on the impact their programme in Bangalore was having on incentivising school attendance, increasing pupil attention, and any patterns we had seen on individual student performances. We robustly argued that a healthy, nutritious school meal was the difference between an education and no education. On the 28th of November 2001 the Indian Supreme Court passed an order which mandated that: "Cooked mid-day meal is to be provided in all government and government-aided primary schools in all states of India."
By the time the Department of School, Health and Education extended its support to our Foundation in 2003, Akshaya Patra was already reaching out to 23,000 underprivileged children across the state of Karnataka. A strong partnership with the Government of India and thousands of extremely generous supporters, we have grown from a small endeavor to a mammoth force that stretches to 8 states across the country.
We had always planned to reach out to one million children by 2010 and we achieved this mammoth milestone in early 2009. For 10 years now, we have been an international charity for children that has worked to transform a vision into a reality, and with our offices in Bangalore, Boston and now London, we will continue to do so...
