Helping Children Access Food for Education

Every child has a handful of dreams and aspirations. But what is stopping them? Empty stomach. Disinterested minds due to weakness. Poor hygiene and lack of amenities. Lack of access to healthcare. But there is a key to realize their dreams- Food. Not just tasty but nutritious food.

Delhi Foodbank, with an objective to better the health, education and safety of children up to school going ages attending non-formal schools across India works with various implementation partners to run ‘Feeding centres’. The model is being replicated across India and is catering to the health, education and safety of children to help them realize potential for a better future with the foundation of creating access to food.

The initiative addresses the basic need of serving meals every day to over 15,000 children in the age group of 6-14 years across 11 cities across India daily. This helps ensure parents send children to school. This way the children are secure and saved from vulnerabilities. The meals are being supported in shelter homes, non-formal education centres, and crèches in slums across India.

Most of times, Delhi Foodbank serves the very first meal of the day that a child eats. For that very reason, under the initiative they serve breakfast and lunch daily. Breakfast menu mostly includes Fruits, Milk, Biscuits, Poha, Idli & Sambhar, Wheat Porridge, Egg & bread. The Lunch, which is prepared on site includes Rice and Dal, with add on like Salad, Paneer, Halwa, Jeera Aloo etc and 200 ml of milk.

Mr. Udai Malhotra – Trustee, Shiksha says – ‘When the children join us, they come to us suffering from malnutrition. They were not getting enough nutritious input. A child needs calcium, zinc, iron, protein, fibre in order to ensure proper development. We aim to provide them with wholesome nutritious meal.’

Nutrition and Health: two sides of the same coin. Food is the first fuel.

The impact this initiative have had can be measured with increase in enrolments and attendance. It helps build better future and helps children stay in schools; improves health; enhancement of neurological development; increase in happiness quotient of child, which is very crucial.

The organization feed meals daily across India in Jharkhand, Punjab, Tamil Nadu, Chandigarh, Kerala, Assam, Jharkhand Maharashtra, Delhi, Haryana, Uttar Pradesh among other states with the aim to transform lives with the foundation to provide access for the most basic need of food for children in need to help them chose and realize a better future.