The Bengaluru-based NGOAkshaya Patrahas
been awarded theBBC
World Service Global Champion Award for the programme.The award
is presented at theBBC
Food and Farming AwardsinBristol, London.The
award recognises a project or person who ischanging the way the world produces,
processes, consumesor thinks about food for the better.
Akshaya Patra was selected by an international
panel of judges from nominations sent in by the World Service audience around
the world. Other projects on the shortlist included UK charityWRAP, and Food 4 Education.
Akshaya
Patra:
Akshaya Patra is anon-profit organisationwhich
wasestablished on
2000.The organisation runs one of theworld’s largest school meals
projectin India.
The mission aims to ensure that no child is
deprived of education because of hunger. It recognises that children may
abandon education to do menial jobs to earn enough money to eat and also an
empty stomach in the classromm can make it hard for them to concentrate.
20 years ago, the charity started itsmidday meal programme.
Initially it provided1,500
free schoollunches every day. Today, it feeds1.75 millionchildren
all over India.
The organisation has its location in various
states likeAndhra
Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Odisha, Rajasthan, Tamil
Nadu, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh.
