Annamrita MDM and its Impact
The Annamrita Foundation(Formerly known as ISKCON Food Relief Foundation), a global food for life subsidiary of ISKCON worldwide, has been implementing the government midday meal in 23 kitchens across 8 states feeding 1.3million children in 8000+ schools. In the last 17 years the foundation has marched towards a Hunger free and educated society, lighting hopes and nurturing the dreams of millions, irrespective of their socio-economic background. The infallible support from the Central government and various state governments has helped the foundation stride towards achieving the “SDGs and Corporate CSR goals as per mandate set out by the NITI Aayog”.
Our Vision that “No child in India shall be deprived of Education because of Poverty” has boosted our efforts and resources to ensure the “Universalization of Global Primary Education” on priority.
India remains home to one quarter of the world’s undernourished population, over a third of the world’s underweight children, and nearly a third of the world’s food-insecure people.Hunger and Illiteracy are India’s two major challenges. There is a serious malnutrition case in India with the World Bank’ estimate of 60 million children in India, being underweight. Hunger is an obstacle to child’s health, education and survival.
The Annamrita program in its first year of implementation, has led to the following positive outcomes:-
1. Elimination of classroom hunger
2. Increase in enrollment, more significantly of girls
3. Increase in daily attendance, particularly of girls and children from poorer sections
Impact of Mid Day Meal Scheme is significant:
1. Mid Day Meal effectively alleviates classroom hunger and persuades poor families to send their children to school.
2. The scheme has increased enrolment in schools.
3. The Programme has reduced dropout rate.
4. It has curbed teacher absenteeism and narrowed social distances.
The scope and effectiveness of Mid Day Meal Scheme has led to increased socialization among castes, addressed Malnutrition and women employment with the impact it has shown and the active convergence of other Departments like Health, Civil Supplies, Food Corporation of India, Sarva Shiksha Abhiyan, Rural Development, Agriculture and Revenue Departments.
The Global School Feeding Report of the United Nation’s World Food Program endorses that: “School feeding programs often double enrollment within a year and can produce a 40 percent improvement in academic performance in just two years. Children who take part in such programs stay in school longer.” Till date, a wholesome meal continues to be the most powerful incentive for children to come to schools (increasing enrolment), retaining them in schools (reducing drop-outs) and helping them to perform better in schools (effective learning experience).
Convinced by the enormous power of education, the Annamrita Foundation has been facilitating the education of over 1.3 million children in 20 locations, 8 states of India by providing nutritious meals in every day. For many children this is the only full meal that they have during the entire course of the day.
Being a public private partnership model, the school meal programme of Annamrita is partially supported by the central and state governments in the form of cash subsidy and grains.
Promote gender equality and empower women
Studies have shown that cultural traditions and social structures often lead to girls being more affected by hunger than boys. Independent surveys indicate that where the Annamrita mid-day meal program is being carried out, this gender gap has reduced significantly. Attendance and enrolment of the girl child has increased in many areas where the program is being conducted.The Foundation has also helped to remove gender inequality by providing livelihood to thousands of underprivileged women through the setup of centralized kitchens in many remote areas of the country.