The Bengaluru-based NGO Akshaya Patra has
been awarded the BBC
World Service Global Champion Award for the programme.The award
is presented at the BBC
Food and Farming Awards in Bristol, London. The
award recognises a project or person who is changing the way the world produces,
processes, consumes or 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 charity WRAP, and Food 4 Education.
Akshaya
Patra:
Akshaya Patra is a non-profit organisation which
was established on
2000. The organisation runs one of the world’s largest school meals
project in 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 its midday meal programme.
Initially it provided 1,500
free schoollunches every day. Today, it feeds 1.75 million children
all over India.
The organisation has its location in various
states like Andhra
Pradesh, Assam, Chhattisgarh, Gujarat, Karnataka, Odisha, Rajasthan, Tamil
Nadu, Telangana, Uttar Pradesh.