Inspired by the works and message of Sathya Sai Baba, Anand Kadali, a Bengaluru-based software engineer, commenced on a mission of ‘breakfast seva’. Zeroing in on a school at Doddabelle village, 20km from his Bangalore home, the young techie, accompanied by two colleagues, decided to feed fifty-odd kids before they headed off to work everyday.
That little effort has, today, grown into the Sri Sathya Sai Annapoorna Trust, which serves breakfast to 120,000 children from disadvantaged backgrounds, across 11 states and one union territory. The mission has spread to five other countries. The trust has no ‘principal-agency’ conflict, and no government funding. A core team of volunteers gave the first donations, and less than five per cent of the budget is spent on logistics and administration. The core team consists of IT professionals, doctors, businessmen and college students; the relentless focus is on real measurable social impact, operational efficiency that aids scalability and clear tracking, and transparency of funds usage. There is no discrimination on the basis of religion, caste, language, gender, race, or political affiliations.
A sample menu would be Avvallaki Bath/ Poha on Monday, Upma on Tuesday, Vegetable Pulav on Wednesday, Vegetable Upma on Thursday and Rice Pongal on Friday, all made with neighbouring grocers, cooks and volunteers chipping in. What started as mere breakfast has evolved. A sick child inspired them to start health camps and screening. Over 13,000 children have been screened at regular medical and dental camps. Along with the school children, pregnant mothers and little ones were screened too; today, a mother and child health programme has been launched in the entire Asia Pacific-Africa region! Often villagers joined in, and need-based services such as provision of potable drinking water through reverse osmosis plants for villages, complete with smart card, and construction of toilets, was taken up. 20,000 villagers today have access to safe drinking water thanks to Team Annapoorna. The team has also taken up education in human values, health and hygiene, spoken English tutorials, and helping the children continue education by providing scholarships.
What is heartening is that youth and colleges have caught the inspiration. An Integrated Rural Development Program (IRDP) course, the first-of-its-kind, was kickstarted in October 2017 to raise awareness among college students about the many challenges in rural India and to give students a first-hand experience of village life in India. The Nagarjuna College of Engineering and Technology, Muddenahalli, has officially partnered with Annapoorna, and the IRDP course has been introduced for 600 students across different streams; it will be a part of their third and the fourth semester curricula. Over the year, facilitated by Annapoorna, these students will go through three hours of theory and 20 hours of practicals at various villages.
Corporate CSR teams and companies—both Indian and MNCs—have come forward to support this most rewarding ‘breakfast seva’ project. In the five years since its inception, ‘breakfast seva’ has metamorphosed into a genuine rural upliftment and transformation program going far beyond India’s borders. Team Annapoorna aims to cross the 500,000 children milestone in another three years.