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I am Kalam trots the globe

I am Kalam, the film produced by Smile Foundation, is getting laudable recognition at all major national and international platforms.
The film has already won the award for the best feature film in the Lucas International Film Festival in Germany; the Don Quixote Prize of the International Cine Club Federations in Germany; Young Jury award at the International Film Festival of India in Goa; the “Audience Favorite” Award at the Barbican London Children’s Film Festival Award; and a Special Diploma for the Best Actor Work at Minsk International Film Festival Listapadzik. The film has also received a Special Mention at the Cinekid International Film Festival in Amsterdam for its attempt to disseminate an important social message.

Apart from these awards and recognitions I am Kalam has also received nominations for the Politiken Audience Award at the Buster Film Festival in Denmark, the Cinekid Lion Award and Audience Award at the Cinekid International Film Festival in Amsterdam and the India Frame Showcase at Mumbai International Film Festival.

The film was premiered in the Marche Du section of the 63rd Cannes Festival and was given a special screening at the National School Film Week in London which is the world’s largest festival for cinema for young people. Apart from this, I am Kalam has already travelled the world over competing in other prestigious film festivals too like the Asia Pacific Screen Awards; Giffoni International Film Festival in Italy; BFI Times London Film Festival; Oulu International Children’s and Youth Film Festival; Kinder Festival in Vienna; Festicinekids in Columbia; and the New York International Children Film Festival.

In addition to this, the film is also going to compete in the Estonia Children’s Film Festival, the Heartland Film Festival in USA, the Poland Youth and Children Film Festival and the Kerela International Film Festival.


Barclays Chairman's Award

Smile Foundation has been awarded the Barclays Chairman’s Award 2010 for putting its best efforts along with the bank’s Indian employees in helping disadvantaged communities. The 14th annual Chairman’s Award was held in Madrid. This global award ceremony is organised by Barclays to recognize and celebrate colleagues’ achievements in their local communities. The award is given to the employees and the NGO for working together in devising innovative strategies to bring a positive change in the lives of the marginalized.

This year’s awards had received 376 nominations from 27 countries covering every area of their business. There were 10 individual and team winners from different geographical regions with one overall winner – Smile Foundation. The Foundation along with the bank’s representative Awanish Gupta, Manager – Retail Banking, was recognized for their outstanding commitment to bring a change.

Smile Foundation and Barclays have worked together to help 200 underprivileged young boys and girls in taking up the career of their choice at Smile Twin e-Learning Programme (STeP) centres. Apart from this, the Foundation and Barclays devised a holistic programme to spread awareness on health related issues of women and HIV in some specific locales of New Delhi, which have a considerably large population of immigrants and young girls engaged in adultery. Among the jury this year, were Marcus Agius – Chairman, Barclays, Lord Ashdown – President, UNICEF UK, Geoffrey Dennis – Chief Executive, CARE International UK and Alan Rusbridger – Editor, The Guardian, among other notable people.

Dance India Dance

On the occasion of Anti Child Labour Day, children from Smile Foundation were given an opportunity to be a part of the audience on the popular dance show, Dance India Dance on Zee TV.

Veteran actor and dancer, Mithun Chakravarty, spoke to the viewers about the significance of the day and made an appeal to all other channels and the media fraternity to promote and spread awareness for the cause. The host of the show, Manish, talked about Smile Foundation and its support of education and health for underprivileged children. The children from Smile were welcomed to the show with a huge round of applause. They were very amused to see how episodes are shot and were very excited to see their favorite contestants in person. They also cherished the time they spent with the celeb judges Farah Khan, Sandip Suparkar and Mithun Chakravarty.

Father 's Day Celebration

The newly started daily soap ‘Maan Rehe Tera Pitah’, on Sony Television celebrated Father’s Day with Smile kidsin New Delhi. The lead star cast of the soap - Varun Badola, Archana Taide and Parmod Moutho, were the main guests for the occasion. Smile kids presented a dance performance for the guests and later invited them to participate as well. The guests enthusiastically interacted with the kids, signed autographs individually for all of them and in rhythm of the age old tradition a cake cutting ceremony was done to mark the celebration of the day. It was a great day for the kids of Smile Foundation as well as the guests.

 

 

Teezing

Smile Foundation associated with Cotton Council International as partner for a pan India t-shirt designing competition, TeeZing. Cotton Council International is a non-profit organization, devoted to the promotion of cotton in India. The competition was conducted in July and was held in 6 cities across India – Delhi, Kolkata, Chandigarh, Ahmedabad, Pune and Hyderabad. Smile kids from select centres of the respective locations participated in the competition. This month long competition offered every participant a chance to showcase their creativity and sketching skills. A formidable team – including leading names from the creative, design and fashion fraternity, was in place to judge the contest. These judges were present at all the competition centres and shared tips with the children to help them bring their creativity to life in designs. There were three winners and five consolation prize winners from each location. These winning designs were further selected to compete at a national level with thousands of entries coming from schools, colleges and individuals all over the country. All the winners from all the centres were awarded with cash prizes.

Ranbir Kapoor celebrates
b'daywith Smile

Smile kids had been invited for a special episode of Entertainment Ke Liye Kuch Bhi Karega on Sony Entertainment Television on September 24, 2010. Superstar Ranbir Kapoor’s birthday was celebrated for this special episode. The children had a lot of fun interacting with the special guests of the show – Ranbir Kapoor and Priyanka Chopra and the judges – Anu Malik and Farah Khan. The kids also enjoyed watching the contestants performing their unique talented acts and cheered them with great enthusiasm. The participants also had a great time performing with such an encouraging audience. It was overall a fun filled day for everyone.


Asia Pacific Child Rights Award

Smile Foundation has won the Asia Pacific Child Rights Award 2010 for excellent advocacy through media through its television campaign Choone Do Aasman (2009) that was broadcasted on NDTV India from August31 to October31, 2009. This award is an alliance of CASBAA, ABU and UNICEF and is given to the best television programme produced in the Asia-Pacific region with a focus on child rights.

This is the 10th year for the Child Rights Award and was held in Tokyo on October 19, 2010. The award ceremony took place during the ABU General Assembly. This year the awards received dozens of entries from many countries in the region including Hong Kong, India, Indonesia, Japan, Lao PDR, Korea, Malaysia and Thailand. Choone Do Aasman was praised by the jurors for being beautifully told, especially the way children were shown, both the protagonists and the narrators.

In addition to this Choone Do Aasman series II was aired on NDTV India and NDTV 24x7 for an entire month in August. This year’s campaign was a series of 15 short two-minute true stories of children living in some of the most conflict ridden areas in India. These stories are set in Manipur, Kashmir, Orissa, Maharashtra, Chattisgarh, Uttar Pradesh, Bihar and Haryana – places that are politically unstable due to insurgency, caste based discrimination or communal conflict. In brief, places where there is extreme poverty and lack of infrastructure.