Akshaya Patra Foundation

Welcome to our CafeGive program. The Akshaya Patra Foundation is one of the world's largest NGO-run midday meal programs, feeding 1.2 million children each day in 7,000 schools through 19 kitchens in eight states in India. For many children this is their only complete meal of the day. This meal gives these children 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.

—Madhu Sridhar, President
Akshaya Patra Foundation

A public-private partnership, Akshaya Patra 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. The organization also sources its food stocks from local markets, thereby reducing costs associated with transportation and food spoilage while supporting the local economy. This model is a cost effective, scalable solution with high quality service delivery. It costs $28 to feed a child daily for the entire school year. With an average government subsidy of 50 percent, $28 feeds two children. Akshaya Patra's next milestone is to serve 5 million children daily by 2020.

Akshaya Patra is the winner of many awards including the 2009 Tech Award in the Microsoft Education category and the ICAI Gold Shield for best financial reporting. It was featured in a Harvard Business School study on precise time management, and was heralded by President Obama as "an imaginative approach that has the potential to serve as a model for other countries." For more information, please visit foodforeducation.org.