India has the second fastest growing economy in the world, but almost half of India's children are malnourished. This is an acute embarrassment for the country. Fred De Sam Lazaro from the Under-Told Stories Project spoke with Biraj Patnak, who works for India's Supreme Court, about the world's largest school lunch program.
India's Supreme Court Affirms Children's Right to Food
About a decade ago, civil activists, saying the government was denying children their basic right to food, took their case to the court. The justices ordered that every child must be provided a cooked meal in school. There was resistance from government officials initially, Biraj Patnak says, as the infrastructure to provide lunches was missing. The true challenge in India is the implementation of the program. How do you deliver lunches to hundreds of thousands of schools, many of them in remote rural areas?
Non-profit "Akshaya Patra" Serves 1.3 Million Children Every Day
"Akshaya Patra" is a non-profit, that jumped at the chance of helping to implement the program and it is now one of the largest providers. It was started in the 1990s when a group of Hare Krishna devotees began preparing a few hundred school lunches. Chanchalapathi Dasa, who heads Akshaya Patra, describes the strength of the group as a "a very unique marriage of dedicated missionaries and professionals" with excellent organizational capabilities. When school lunches became the law of the land, the group went to the government for funds to expand and to India's corporate sector for expertise.
Growing Sense of Philanthropy Among India's Middle Class
Many Indian professionals who work for software companies are attaining middle class status much earlier than their parents. Dasa explains: "I come from a middle class family and my parents had a house when they were 50 years of age." Today young professionals "are 28 or 30 years old and they already have a house, they have a car, and then what? They still have a lot of disposable income, and they are genuinely looking for opportunities where their money can be used well for social development." Akshaya Patra aims to expand its lunch program five-fold by 2020.
School attendance is up by 11% since the program started
While malnutrition remains a daunting problem in India, school attendance is up by 11% in areas that implemented the program. Madhu Kilani, a school principal, explains that the students belong to very poor, labor-class families. They don't receive a meal at home at night, so their mid-day meal at school provides the whole day's nutrition. On days when there is no school many students go hungry. And they are the lucky ones, as malnutrition remains the root cause of 2500 child deaths in India-every day.
Sources:
- Fred de Sam Lazaro, India School Lunch Program, Religion & Ethics Newsweekly, September 16, 2011.
- Right to Food Campaign, Commissioners to the Supreme Court, www.righttofoodindia.org, retrieved on October 4, 2011.
Join the Conversation