A Dining Shed, A Brighter Future

For children who depend on the midday meal at school, the meal itself is not the only thing that matters. Where they eat it matters too. In schools without a proper dining space, students eat on the ground, in corridors, or wherever there is a patch of shade, balancing plates on their laps, eating quickly to get back inside. For Meena, this was simply how lunch worked.

Meena is an 11 year old student in the 6th standard at Zilla Parishad School, Panyam. She lives with her parents and a younger brother. For many children at the school, the midday meal is the main meal of the day. But there was no covered space to have it. Students sat wherever they could, outside in the heat, in dusty corridors, sometimes inside the classroom itself. "Sometimes dust would get into the food. On rainy days it was worse. There was nowhere to go."

Under Project GyanDaan, implemented by Making The Difference Charitable Trust under the CSR support of Krishnagiri Thopur Toll Road Private Limited with Interise Trust, a dining shed with fencing and a gate was constructed at Zilla Parishad School, Panyam, along with classroom benches, teacher's furniture, boards, cupboards, waste management facilities, painting, and distribution of school bags benefiting 790+ students.

Now the midday meal happens in a proper covered space. Students sit together, out of the sun, without dust in their plates. For 790+ students at Zilla Parishad School, Panyam, Project GyanDaan has made sure that the meal children count on the most is served the way it always should have been.