Our Programs
Feeding Initiative in India
Srila Prabhupada desired that no one, especially children, should go hungry. Inspired by his vision, Shri Madhu Pandit Dasa and Shri Chanchalapathi Dasa, the founders of World Food Movement, began various feeding initiatives in India.
Following are some of the feeding programs in India:
School Lunch Program
School Lunch Program
The Akshaya Patra school lunch program was initiated in 2000 with the objective that no child in India shall be deprived of education due to hunger. Since then, fresh, hot and nutritious meals have been served every day to children studying in government schools.
This feeding program has alleviated classroom hunger by leveraging technology and philanthropy. It has increased enrolment, attendance, and retention of students in the school. The meals prepared and served according to the local food preferences have improved their concentration levels and learning capacities. The state-of-the-art kitchens where large-scale cooking takes place for such feeding programs have been featured in the popular television series 'Mega Kitchens', which aired on the National Geographic Channel.
Akshaya Patra has grown from humble beginnings to become the world's largest (not-for-profit run) school lunch program. Currently, the kitchens operate in 78 locations across 16 states and 3 union territories of India, enabling them to serve freshly cooked mid-day meals to over 2.2 million children everyday, thus ensuring their health and education. The feeding mission commemorated the milestone of serving 4 billion meals since its inception at the United Nations Headquarters in New York in April 2024.
Leading institutions like London Business School, Stanford and Harvard Universities have conducted case studies on the processes and systems of the school lunch program as part of their curriculum.
Community Feeding
Community Feeding
Public feeding
We have been distributing freshly cooked meals in and around our centres every day for many years. Lakhs of people including visitors, pilgrims and other communities have been fed so far, upholding our principle – No one should go hungry.
Subsidized meals
Some of our initiatives serve freshly cooked meals at a nominal amount of INR 5 or INR 10 to various sections of society like commercial drivers, industrial labourers and farmers. This feeding programme serves over 40,000 meals a day in Hyderabad, India.
Hospital feeding
Fresh and nutritious food is distributed to patients and their attendants in government hospitals. People from economically disadvantaged households visit government hospitals to avail affordable healthcare. The attendants of the patients have to spend most of the day on the hospital premises and have limited accessibility to hygienic food at a reasonable price. To mitigate the suffering of these distressed people, we are serving free, fresh and nutritious food through our feeding program. This intervention helps them to stay healthy and also save their limited resources for medicines and treatment.
Feeding program for elderly abandoned mothers
Elderly vulnerable women who do not have any source of income and support depend on such feeding programs. About 1000 mothers are currently being served fresh and wholesome meals every day. Cooking is done on a large scale, maintaining high standards of quality and hygiene in the kitchen. The food is delivered at the right time every day to the shelters accommodating these women who eagerly look forward to the meals.
Emergency Feeding
Emergency Feeding
Disasters and natural calamities like floods, earthquakes are unpredictable. As we are aware, economically disadvantaged families have no proper access to the basic necessities of life. Their conditions worsen these households when they are confronted by calamitous situations. Over 250 million meals were served during the COVID-19 pandemic in India. Free grocery kits and cooked meals were provided to marginalized sections of society like daily wage workers, construction labourers, old age homes and other low-income sections. In the past, the feeding mission has undertaken relief feeding in various parts of India during natural disasters.
The emergency feeding initiative has been extended outside India to provide food assistance to distressed people in other countries as well. Its international aid included serving freshly cooked meals to people in Nepal and distributing food, grocery, and hygiene kits in Turkey, benefitting thousands of earthquake survivors. The people of Ukraine who were facing food insecurity due to the war were also served wholesome meals.
