One thing that struck me, as a first impression during our initial distributions of bedkits is how well nourished the children seemed to be. I mentioned this to Pat and Brian Tuddenham, who had been here 10 years ago, and they confirmed, that yes, something had definitely happened, the normal case had been that the average child was suffering from malnutrition.
Today, we discovered the reason for the transition.
In 2003, the Indian Government mandated that every child enrolled in school would receive a free mid day meal. Today we visited the largest of 12 mega kitchens run by Akshaya Patra. The kitchen we visited was in Hubli and prepares 150,000 meals in less than 5 hours every day. Each meal costs $0.20, 12 cents provided by the government and 8 cents by donations from the public. A donation of R 950 will serve one child a daily meal for an entire academic year.
This is one program that has had a truly transformative effect on both the Indian economy and society. School attendance is up, the level of literacy is exploding, childhood starvation has been eradicated.
The goal of the program is to feed 5 million children daily by 2020.
Team Belgaum 2017
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