New Delhi: Santanu Mishra, Co-Founder & Executive Trustee Smile Foundation, has been conferred Bharatiya Manavata Vikas Puraskar 2019 for Smile Foundation’s committed and extensive contribution towards human welfare.
Mr Mishra was one of the ten awardees who were honoured yesterday (30th August 2019) in the national capital by former President Shri Pranab Mukherjee.
The list of awardees included Arunachalam Muruganantham, Nafisa Ali Sodhi, Menaka Gandhi, Lakshmi Agarwal, Mansi Pradhan, Dr Prakash Amte, Sandeep Pandey, Anu Agha, and Belinda Wright. The awardees were selected by an eminent twenty-four-member jury.
The award citation highlighted the innovative approach and extensive partnerships, with a range of stakeholders, particularly with companies and corporates, fostered by Smile Foundation to enable interventions that have benefitted 750,000 children and their families.
Smile on Wheels is a custom-tailored mobile medical unit van that provides free of cost door step consultation, basic medical tests medicines to underprivileged
New Delhi: Out-of-pocket health expenses drove 55 million Indians, more than the population of South Korea, Spain or Kenya, into poverty in 2011-2012, and of these, 38 million (69 per cent) were impoverished by expenditure on medicines alone, states the study carried out by Public Health Foundation of India (PHFI) and published in the British Medical Journal in 2018. Due to lack of funds, poor people often avoid necessary healthcare and even a preventable illness takes the shape of life-threatening disease. To address the issue, in 2006 NGO Smile Foundation introduced ‘Smile on Wheels’, a project to meet the primary healthcare needs of urban underprivileged communities.
‘Smile on Wheels’ is a custom-tailored mobile medical unit van, armed with modern equipment and a doctor and qualified nursing attendant on board, made available to cater to the primary health needs of beneficiaries in inaccessible areas. The ‘Smile on Wheels’ van provides free of cost door step consultation, medical tests like blood sugar and blood pressure, measuring weight and height and free medicines to underprivileged.
Giving out details of the initiative to NDTV, Santanu Mishra, co-founder and trustee, Smile Foundation, says,
“While free medical services is the core function of these vans but the secondary function also involves cultivating health seeking behavior in the community, awareness on health and sanitation, and consciousness on right eating and nutrition, particularly among pregnant women and infants.
The mobile medical unit vans contribute towards bridging the access and equity gap in our healthcare system. Further talking about the aim of smile on wheels initiative, Mr Mishra says,
“This free of cost door step service is our effort to reduce out of pocket expenses for the underserved communities, thereby helping them allocate their resources to other critical needs like food and education.
How Smile On Wheels Provide Free Healthcare
One mobile medical unit caters to the needs of the residents of 10-12 locations with bimonthly visits at each identified location. Before a medical van is scheduled to address the medical needs of slum dwellers, a team of volunteers does the job of community mobilisation. A group of volunteers go door-to-door, informing slum dwellers about medical van’s upcoming visit and how they can avail facilities.
One mobile medical unit caters to the needs of the residents of 10-12 locations with bimonthly visits at each identified location
Talking about the process for availing free medical facilities provided by smile on wheels, Mr Mishra says,
“As and when our smile on wheels (SOW) reaches its destination, individual willing to get free of cost medical consultancy needs to register himself/herself and wait for his/her turn. The reason we have made registration mandatory is to have the medical history of each and every patient at one place. This information comes handy when a person shifts from one place to another or when a doctor changes. For instance, a migrant labour living in Delhi moves to a colony in Kolkata and wishes to utilise the medical facilities provided by SOW in his current location. In that case, a doctor in Kolkata can simply know about his medical history from our data base and provide necessary treatment.
Smile On Wheels Changing Lakhs Of Lives
At the launch of NDTV Dettol Banega Swasth India on Monday (August 19) with campaign ambassador Amitabh Bachchan, NDTV spoke to a couple of 6000 beneficiaries from Basanti Colony in Kolkata. Most of the residents of Basanti Colony are daily wage earners and for them sometimes it is a choice between going to the hospital for medical care and earning their daily bread. Talking about how mobile van is better than going to a hospital, one of the beneficiaries said,
“The nearest hospital is far away and going there and standing in a queue whole day means the loss of a livelihood whereas mobile van addresses our needs quickly.
Smile on Wheels initiative that was first launched in 2006 became fully operational in 2011. Today, Smile Foundation runs 42 fully functional medical vans across 22 states in India, of which three mobile medical units are operational in Kolkata. Over the years, SOW has benefitted 3.4 lakh individuals and around 70 per cent of the beneficiaries are women and children. In Kolkata alone, nearly 1.25 lakh people have been benefitted in the last four years. Smile Foundation is aiming to add at least 40 more medical units in the next two years.
Kolkata, Aug 21 (UNI) With an objective to create awareness and support girls so that they receive a quality education, the iconic British luxury motorcycle maker Triumph and Smile Foundation came together for the fifth time in a row to raise funds.
As India celebrates its 73rd Independence Day, bikers across 15 cities came together to set the ‘wheels of change in motion’ for girls from less privileged communities, giving a special meaning to word freedom that only education can empower
Triumph and Smile Foundation came together for the fifth time in a row to raise funds for supporting girl’s education and make the day special by holding bike rides by enthusiasts.
Shoeb Farooq, General Manager, Triumph Motorcycles India, said,’In a country like ours where the girls have very little access to education, it is very important to create opportunities for them to learn, grow and evolve… our objective is to create awareness and support girls so that they receive a quality education, which helps them better their lives.”
“We are happy to partner with Triumph for five years in a row to support the cause of education, which is the very foundation of Smile. We believe in education for all and girl child in particular as they form the foundation, the backbone of every family,” said Santanu Mishra, co-founder, and trustee, Smile Foundation.
“If we educate our girls today, they will be informed wives, mothers, and caregivers tomorrow. This is not just important for the progress of a home, but integral to the healthy growth of the nation as a whole,” added Mishra.
This ride for a cause was flagged off from Triumph dealerships across fifteen locations in Mumbai, Pune, Delhi-NCR, Kochi, Kolkata, Chennai, Bengaluru, Hyderabad, and Ahmedabad.
“Through this ride, we wish to create awareness around the need for quality education for all. Our riders will be spreading the message of the need for educating the girls,” added Farooq.
Triumph’s ‘Ride for Freedom’ reached out to its 6,000-strong customer base across cities. The company reached out to its patrons to encourage them to support the education of girls.
NGO Smile Foundation, West Bengal, strives to prepare deliciously nutritious meals in a bid to bring kids to schools. Tiny tots from neighbouring regions stay in ardent anticipation to savour the day’s meal replete with vegetables. This initiative is to cater students’ hygienic and nutritious needs instrumental in honing academic excellence. Smile Foundation has designed various intervention projects to improve quality of services imparted under the ‘Mission Education’ programme in West Bengal. The entire operation is superintended by Gargi Kapoor, National Manager of the Mission Education programme in West Bengal at Smile Foundation.
Students under 3-18 years could avail the free meal scheme spanning over formal, non-formal and remedial centres. Formal sector falls under the purview of state board education while the non-formal is affiliated to National Institute of Open Schooling (NIOS); remedial centres receive Smile Foundation’s active collaboration to continue at their government or private schools. Currently, ME has branched out to 22 Indian states benefitting 47,000 children and hundreds of schools to improve retention rates and quality of meals.
Nutrition as an impetus to study harder
Over 975 students, enrolled at the ME centres, are now motivated by the likelihood of obtaining a full-plate. In West Bengal, ME has six centres proactively working towards eradicating hunger and malnutrition. West Bengal ranks 8 in India State Hunger Index which could be effectively combated by Smile Foundation’s initiative. The scheming allows students, irrespective of schools’ affiliations, avail Smile Foundation’s exclusive support model. It is a stepping-stone towards making nutrition a basic right for students belonging to families of daily wage earners. Students are also made to address gaps in hygiene practices followed by the meal. Besides ME’s mouth-watering menu, snacks such as ladoo and cakes are also provided. West Bengal’s Smile Foundation exceeds beyond a stomach full of savoury plate. It is engaged with schools to supply essentials like smart boards and teachers as required.
