Government School Visit

Today my team and I visited a school and volunteered during their lunch period. This program was arranged by a wonderful organization called Akshaya Patra which feeds 2 lakh children a mid-day meal in Karnataka. They also feed senior citizens and the leftovers go to other local schools nearby. The program has been extended to others parts of India due to its huge success. They have 2 kitchens in Bangalore and apparently it's marvel to watch the production line they have setup to achieve this enormous task on a daily basis. The student teacher ratio in government schools is 40 children to 1 one teacher. This school had 40 children from grades 1-5 all in one class taught by the same teacher. The children were thrilled to see us. Since they only spoke Kannada, it was hard for me to communicate but some of the Kannada speaking team engaged the children. They asked them to sing songs which they obliged, two girls did a small dance while the students sang a song, they introduced themselves and one girl bravely introduced herself in English, that same girl later said that she wanted to work at Cisco when asked what she wanted to be when she grew up. 80% of the girls wanted to be teachers, the rest doctors and engineers. 60% of the boys wanted to be policeman and the rest cricket players, doctors, engineers and one boy wanted to be a soldier. When asked how they would achieve their goals, they all chimed, "They need to study hard!" The food arrived in these huge pots, the children washed their own plates, stood in line for kichidi and a sweet (menu varies everyday) , sat on the ground and ate the food with their hands. Later they asked us to try the food (I must admit, I was a little uncomfortable eating on their plates as they only cleaned them with water and the plates were still wet but I didn't want to be rude). The food was delicious! A representative from Akshaya Patra accompanied us and told us that the government subsidizes 50% of the meal and the rest comes from donors. Originally, they started with a few schools but when enrollment increased in those schools, the goverment asked Akshaya to provide meals to more schools. This is the only meal of the day for many students, they all ate every bit of food on their plate although some of the children opted only for the sweet but we were told the children are offered the meal again later in the day. It seems that many other programs were tried, the government gave rice to the families but the fathers would sell the rice in exchange for alcohol. They also tried providing rice, lentils, and vegetables to the schools but the teachers did not have enough time to cook for the children and teach the curriculum and most of the food was taken home by the teachers. This particular project seems to be successful. The whole experience was certainly an eye opener for me.