This restaurant in Birmingham has given out 15m meals to children across England, Scotland & India

An Indian restaurant group has donated more than 15 million meals to children in schools across England, Scotland and India.

The campaign was launched during Ramadan in 2015 as a ‘zakat’ (act of almsgiving) as a collaboration between Dishoom and charity partners Magic Breakfast and The Akshaya Patra Foundation. Dhishoom has nine restaurants across the UK - including one in Birmingham.

Dhishoom Birmingham has also donated over 300 meals to local charity, Let’s Feed Brum. Together, they have fed more than two million children per week. The main goal of the programme is to ensure children head to their classrooms feeling full, removing food poverty as a barrier to their education.

Following its launch, Dishoom donated around 2.5 million meals to children each year and following the pandemic, the group instead offered meal delivery kits to fund donations.

Magic Breakfast’s partner schools believe that during the current cost of living crisis, child hunger has increased by 81% in their school community.

In both India and the UK, the meals donated from this partnership are a vital part of ensuring children are able to attend school, especially in India where access to education for girls can be restricted.

Bhawani Singh Shekhawat, CEO, The Akshaya Patra Foundation UK, said: “Here at The Akshaya Patra Foundation, we believe in the power of food to break down barriers. In our case this is to work towards eradicating childhood hunger as a barrier to education.

“Feeding 1.6 million children every day and scaling up to reach millions more children who need Food For Education is certainly not something we can achieve alone.

“We are therefore hugely grateful to everyone at Dishoom for supporting us so generously and wholeheartedly. Dishoom’s invaluable support has played, and will continue to play, a significant part in making our ambitious goals a reality, and I am excited to see where this partnership will take us together.”

More information on Dishoom’s Meal For A Meal programme, visit their website.