*About Akshaya Patra* http://www.akshayapatra.org/
The Akshaya Patra Foundation is the largest NGO midday meal program in the world. Akshaya Patra is an organization with the vision that no child shall be deprived of education because of hunger. Now feeding over 960,000 underprivileged children in over 5,700 schools in six states in India, Akshaya Patra will reach its million children milestone fairly soon. It costs only $28 to feed a child for the entire year. Akshaya Patra is a public-private partnership that combines good management, innovative technology and smart engineering to deliver school lunch at a fraction of the cost of similar programs in other parts of the world. For many of the children this is their only complete meal for the day. This gives them an incentive to come to school, stay in school and provides them with the necessary nutrients they need to develop their cognitive abilities to focus on learning. Through kitchens specially designed by engineers to leverage technology and sourcing its food stocks from local markets, Akshaya Patra is able to reduce costs associated with transportation and food spoilage while supporting the local economy. In a short time, the foundation has grown to become the largest, and certainly most innovative, school lunch program in the world. Akshaya Patra is a great example of what a non-profit organization can achieve-- a cost effective, scalable solution with high quality service delivery.
