‘Happiness’ kits for vulnerable children

Contains food items, daily-use products

Akshaya Patra has launched a ‘Happiness Kit’ to support children from vulnerable communities and their families. The kit comprises food items that provide essential nutrients for daily consumption leading to the health, growth, and development of a child.

Pulses, spices, peanuts, jaggery, biscuits and other food items in the kit are to supplement and enhance the nutritional intake of children and their families, above and beyond the set allocation of grains by Central & State governments and HRD Ministry.

The kit also includes a soap, a toothbrush, toothpaste, and sanitary pads to promote hygiene in children. To exercise their cognitive abilities, activity-based learning workbooks are also included in respective regional languages. Essential nutrients like glucose, iron and calcium, iodine, protein that help boost the immunity of the child are part of the kit too.

Each kit has a nutritional value of 717.5 gm of protein and 22,175 calories of energy, while on a per meal basis each child receives 23.9 gm of protein and 739 calories of energy.

The pilot project has targeted as many as 1,200 school children in Bangalore, and another 38,666 children in Guwahati. Akshaya Patra aims to scale up and expand the programme across locations to midday meal beneficiaries at their school premises, with students’ parents picking up their kit, a press release informed.