I am Shreyas Iyer and with your help, I would like to provide mid-day meals to 10 children for a year. This initiative is important for me as the the Mid-Day meal acts like an incentive for the children to attend school, get proper education that leads them to a bright future. This arrangement also serves as a source of economic support to the family, as every school day one nutritious meal is taken care of for their child. ABOUT THE AKSHAYA PATRA FOUNDATION The Akshaya Patra Foundation is the World’s largest NGO-RUN Mid-Day Meal Programme serving Wholesome School Lunch to Over 1.8 Million Children in 19500 Schools across 12 States and 2 Union Territories in India. Akshaya Patra strives to eliminate classroom hunger by implementing the Mid-Day Meal Scheme in the government schools and government-aided schools. Alongside, Akshaya Patra also aims at countering malnutrition and supporting the right to education of socio-economically disadvantaged children. Through the Mid-Day Meal Programme, Akshaya Patra Foundation’s attempt is to feed the millions of children in India who lack the means, but, have the zeal to learn and achieve. By feeding them one wholesome meal a day, we give them the nourishment and motivation they need to pursue an Education for a better future. It is our endeavor to reach out to every child at the grass root level of the society. The objectives of Mid-Day Meal Program: Improving the nutritional status of children in classes I-V in Government, Local Body and Government aided schools, and EGS and AIE centers. Encouraging children, belonging to disadvantaged sections, to attend school more regularly and help them concentrate on classroom activities Providing nutritional support to children of primary stage in drought affected areas during summer vacation While focusing on improving nutritional level and attendance, Akshaya Patra also aims to address two Sustainable Development Goals: Zero Hunger and Quality Education. Improving socialization among children, and empowering women through employment opportunities. Akshaya Patra is focused on eliminating malnutrition and classroom hunger and attracting more children (enrolment) to schools and ensure to keep them in school (reduce dropout rate) by feeding a filling, nutritious mid-day meal every school day. THE PROBLEM Malnutrition and Hunger: The school nutritional Programme approximately covers about 370 million children globally, with the largest number of beneficiaries being in India (100 million). The pandemic has led to a 30 per cent reduction in nutritional coverage which used to be achieved through school meals Programme. World Bank data indicated that India had one of the world’s highest demographics of children suffering from malnutrition even prior to the pandemic. Busy doing menial jobs, these children are missing out on the benefits of education which is the key to a promising future. *UNICEF on ‘COVID-19: Missing More Than a Classroom’ The need for Intervention: 1. School closures impacted 247 million children in elementary and secondary education; 2. Not including 28 million children in pre-schools and Anganwadi centers; 3. This is in addition to more than six million children who were already out of school before the COVID-19 crisis; *UNICEF report released in June 2020 ”Being out-of-school means these children are deprived of their right to Nutrition and Education, and the Right to Aspire”. _____________ IT JUST COSTS INR 1500 TO FEED A CHILD FOR ENTIRE YEAR _______________ AKSHAYA PATRA STATE-OF-THE-ART KITCHEN – QUALITY & HYGIENE From preparation to delivery of mid-day meals, the Akshaya Patra kitchens operate on a daily basis keeping in mind two most important elements: hygiene and quality. A centralized kitchen helps us manage operations from a single point of control; this includes receiving, storage, preparation, delivery, maintenance, among other processes that form the cycle of mid-day meal operations. Currently, Akshaya Patra Foundation operates 65 centralized kitchens in 13 states and 2 Union Territory of India and these kitchens prepare mid-day meals for 2 Million school children studying in 20,556 Govt. schools in India. The Akshaya Patra centralized kitchens are equipped with cauldrons, trolleys, rice chutes, dal/sambar tanks, cutting boards, knives and other similar equipment that are sanitized before usage. The semi-automated kitchens have the capacity to undertake large scale feeding, typically up to 104,000 mid-day meals a day and they also adhere to Food Safety Management Systems (FSMS) to ensure safe handling, preparation, and delivery of the food. Using these highly mechanized units, Akshaya Patra is able to achieve the highest levels of hygiene by reducing human contact with the food. After cooking, the food is packed into stainless steel containers and transported via conveyor belts to be loaded into custom made food distribution vehicles, to be taken to the beneficiary schools. COST OF THE MIDDAY MEAL PROGRAM INR 1500/- Per Year Per Child TAX BENEFITS Donation for this campaign is eligible for Tax Benefits of up to 50% exemption, as Akshaya Patra is a registered entity. You can avail the Tax exemption under section 80(G) of the Income Tax Act. FREQUENTLY ASKED QUESTIONS 1. When do I get the receipts? The receipts will start getting processed after the payment and It takes up to a week after the payment is received by Akshaya Patra. The receipt will be sent directly to your email id. To claim the 80G Tax benefit, please furnish your PAN details while making the payment. 2. How do we get to know the details of who has benefitted from our contribution? After the money has been collected, You’ll receive a receipt of your donation as an acknowledgement post which it take 1- 2 months to share the details of the fund utilized. As soon as we get the details of the beneficiaries, this will be shared on The UPDATES section of this campaign. You will get a SMS and EMAIL and you can read details about who benefitted with your donation. The Akshaya Patra team will coordinate this and keep us in loop. (WHICH SCHOOL AND HOW MANY STUDENTS HAVE BENEFITTED WITH YOUR GENEROUS CONTRIBUTION) 3. Can I donate anonymously? Yes. You can choose to donate anonymously but we highly recommend that to avail the tax benefits please do furnish your basic information for us to acknowledge your valuable contribution. 4. Do I need to register and Why? Banking and NGO rules recommends us to capture name, address, telephone/email and PAN number details of our donors. You just have to enter the amount and click on the Donate button and Register, post which you will be redirected to a secured payment gateway to complete your transaction. The process is extremely easy and it takes just about 1-2 minutes to complete the entire transaction.