Akshaya Patra, Huawei collaborate to distribute 9,130 family happiness kits

Bengaluru: Marking the sixth year of a successful collaboration, Huawei India and The Akshaya Patra Foundation are taking forward their collective war against hunger and malnutrition with the distribution of 9,130 Family Happiness Kits. Each kit, packaged to suit regional food habits, provides a family of four members with 120 meals.

The Huawei and Akshaya Patra partnership was initiated in 2016 to support the school's mid-day meal programme and has since extended its scope to provide dry ration kits to underprivileged strata of society during the two years of the pandemic. To date, the collaboration has jointly served nearly 73.9 lakh meals across geographies in Delhi NCR, Uttar Pradesh, Karnataka, Telangana, and Andhra Pradesh.

Acknowledging the partnership, Shridhar Venkat, CEO, The Akshaya Patra Foundation said, "It is our firm belief that collective effort is key to undertaking an effective and efficient service for the betterment of society. Over the years, Akshaya Patra's initiatives have been empowered and enabled by strategic collaborations and partnerships. One such significant partnership is with Huawei India. We truly appreciate and are grateful to Huawei India for their support through the years. Our partnership is aligned with our endeavour to eradicate classroom hunger by providing mid-day meals to government school children. During the pandemic, their support in our Food Relief Efforts helps bring about significant change in the lives of numerous people from vulnerable communities. We hope our collaboration with Huawei India keeps growing and continues to positively impact more lives."

Speaking on the collaboration, Huawei India CEO David Li said, "As a responsible corporate citizen, Huawei is committed to contribute to the sustained development of the society. The current scenario makes it imperative that we join hands with partners with proven track record for supporting communities in need. Our six-year long association with The Akshaya Patra Foundation has jointly worked to address malnutrition in children by eliminating classroom hunger. With the onset of the pandemic, we extended this partnership to support vulnerable sections of society with Grocery kits. As we progress, we will remain continue to expand our corporate social responsibility initiatives in India with initiatives and projects that benefit the Indian society and industry." In addition to school mid-day meals and Family Happiness Kits, the support from Huawei has also been to provide for food distribution vehicles and kitchen utensils and infrastructure. During the first wave of the global pandemic in 2020, more than 40 lakh relief meals and 8,333 grocery kits were provided to affected families under this partnership. Between 2016 and 2019, Huawei and Akshaya Patra also collaborated for the mid-day meal scheme serving nearly 60 lakh mid-day meals to school-going children. The Akshaya Patra Foundation has been concerting all its efforts towards serving children and humanity for the last 21 years through its 60 kitchens across 13 states and two Union territories. Besides, during the pandemic, the NGO stepped up and ensured that even if the kids couldn't come to school, they didn't sleep on an empty stomach. So far, Akshaya Patra has served 21.4 crore cumulative meals to those affected by the virus outbreak.