Forty-year-old Sudha K is an Akshaya Patra Foundation beneficiary from Chennai, Tamil Nadu. From Valmikinagar in Tiruvanmiyur, she works for the Chennai Corporation as a sanitary worker and sweeper. 

With the roads still needed to be cleaned and garbage collected, Sudha tells us that she continued to work during the lockdown, even though she worried about getting sick and making her family sick she needed the money. With no shops open, and their corporation office canteen being three kilometres from where they worked she and the other workers often did not have access to food during the day. 

To aid the residents of Valmikinagar, Akshaya Patra began serving cooked meals. Sudha says that when she heard about the meals she was very happy, especially because the food was free. Adding, “These meals saved me and my co-workers time and travel expense which is good when life is already very difficult. Now we don’t have to travel all the to the office canteen every day. Even when we could go, if we are late the food will be over anyway.” 

She says she hopes that food continues to be served in her area until the pandemic is over and life goes back to normal.