A line of oversized stainless steel tiffin boxes, stand in row, filled with hot food, waiting to be loaded into an insulated van, that makes sure that the food remains hot even when it reaches a school at least 60 kms away from the kitchen. A foundation that began in 2000, by serving mid-day meals to 1,500 children across five government schools in Bengaluru, Karnataka, now serves over 1.75 million children, in 14,702 schools across 12 states in India every day now.
A perfect amalgamation of a public-private partnership, the Akshaya Patra Foundation, derived from the Sanskrit word for “inexhaustible vessel” was started in 2000, when one day while looking out of a window in Mayapur, near Calcutta, Srila Prabhupada, the founder of International Society for Krishna Consciousness (ISKCON), saw a group of children fighting with stray dogs over food. Deeply moved by this incident, he resolved to ensure that no one within a 10-mile radius of any ISKCON should go hungry.
Addressing the most immediate and important needs of India-hunger and education, Akshaya Patra with the driving statement “No child is deprived of education because of hunger”, has achieved numerous milestones over the past 19 years, 3 billion meals being the most recent one.