LONDON, Mar 26 : Akshata Murty, wife of former British prime minister Rishi Sunak, visited a leading children’s charity to engage with pupils benefiting from its innovative after-school meals programme, her spokesperson said on Wednesday.
Murty, a philanthropist, visited the Akshaya Patra Foundation’s Watford kitchen, northwest of London, which was opened in 2020. It is the first international kitchen of the charity which serves 2.2 million children across India every school day.
At the Watford kitchen, Murty assisted the charity’s cooks and met students from Nottingham’s Strelley Academy, one of the first schools to adopt the foundation’s Hot Meals and Homework club model.
The ‘Hot Meals and Homework’ clubs at schools in areas of significant deprivation provide additional nutrition and tuition for some of the UK’s most disadvantaged children.
The initiative tackles the twin problems of food poverty and educational inequality by enabling children living in poorer communities to access a hot and nutritious meal paired with extra teaching support at every after-school session.
Murty, who recently co-founded her own charity that focuses on improving numeracy skills, has long supported the Akshaya Patra Foundation’s efforts.
During her visit, she shared a meal with the children and also assisted them with their maths homework.
“My family and I have been very proud to play our part in Akshaya Patra’s incredible story, watching it grow to feed 2.2 million children every day across India. It is so important that the charity is also helping to change lives here in the UK and I am delighted to shine a spotlight on its brilliant initiative Hot Meals and Homework,” Murty said.
“Rishi and I are passionate about education and breaking down barriers to social mobility, and I have been so impressed by what the Hot Meals and Homework programme is achieving for so many communities,” she said.
Daniel Adams, Chief Executive Officer of Akshaya Patra, said, “It has been wonderful to welcome Akshata to our kitchen. She is an incredibly inspiring advocate for solutions that empower communities, and her visit today has shone a spotlight on the vital connection between food, education, and opportunity.
The Akshaya Patra foundation was founded in Bengaluru in 2000 and now runs the world’s largest NGO-led, single-country school meals programme, serving 2.2 million children across India every school day. (PTI)
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