The Akshaya Patra Foundation - Bay Area

• 40% of the world's malnourished children live in India (UNICEF). 
• 96% of all children in India enroll in primary school but only 58% enroll in upper primary school, with 40% of children dropping out of school (USAID).
• Of those that drop out, 65% do so to supplement family income through household chores or domestic work (USAID).
• Another 30% dropped out to work to earn money (USAID).

At Akshaya Patra we believe that the solution to the problems of child malnutrition, lack of access to education, and poverty in India can be solved with the simplest of catalysts--a hot nutritious school meal. And our program is making believers out of many!  

For struggling families, education is a luxury they cannot afford.  These families are forced to pull their children from school to help put food on the table. 

But Akshaya Patra meals can make the difference, empowering families to send their children to school for a meal instead of to work.  Once at school, these children receive the life-changing benefits of education.

Akshaya Patra serves hot nutritious school meals to 1.6 million children DAILY across India. Children like Mounesh and Savitha.  Siblings Mounesh and Savitha are the first in their large family to become literate. For their parents the Akshaya Patra meal relieved the financial burden of providing one daily meal to their son and daughter and gave them the hope that Mounesh and Savitha would have a better life. Mounesh says, "I would push myself to go to school. If not for the mid-day meal, I don’t think I would’ve had the minimum attendance needed to write my annual exams.”

Today, Mounesh and Savitha are in college. Mounesh is working to become a lawyer and Savitha is studying to become a psychologist.