Author: Smile Team

New Delhi :Smile Foundation, a national level development organisation, under their Swabhiman programme, conducted a capacity building training session on advanced knowledge of Reproductive & Child Health (RCH), Adolescent Reproductive & Sexual Health (ARSH) and the new Government schemes on RCH issues. More than 26 participants including Community Health Educators (CHEs), Smile Health Volunteers (SHVs) and Smile Foundation coordinators were present at this session.

Ms. Varsha Chanda, faculty from eNVision, joined the Swabhiman team in conducting the session. During the session, Ms. Chanda interacted with the CHEs, SHVs, and beneficiaries about improved Reproductive and Child Health (RCH), developing skills in community mobilisation and communication as well as on effective reporting, documentation and networking skills which will enable them in getting proper data from the field. Innovative methods of Communication, Community Mobilization in promoting RCH & ARSH were also shared in the session.

The training session was an initiative to mobilise communities effectively and communicate the right knowledge in an interesting manner, so that their families and communities can develop a conscious awareness towards such sensitive issues. Discussions were held on several topics vital to a woman’s body and life such as reproductive organs, menstrual cycle, pregnancy, etc. At the end, the beneficiaries were engaged in various activities to demonstrate their understanding on the topic.

A set of IEC (Information, Education and Communication) materials were distributed.

Even though the CHEs have been working on Reproductive and Child Health, Adolescent Reproductive & Sexual Health for a long time but they are often unclear about recent schemes from the Government. The CHEs generally address women and young girls but men and larger community get ignored for the reasons mentioned before.

Ms. Puja Trisal, Programme Head, Smile Foundation said, “Our Community Health Educators generally address women and young girls but involving the men and the community is also important since they play a very important role in woman empowerment. For this the CHEs need advanced RCH knowledge to mobilize communities effectively and communicate the right knowledge in an interesting manner. Hence this capacity building session is being organized”

About Swabhiman

Swabhiman is a programme focusing on girl children and women empowerment. The USP of Swabhiman is its innovative and highly effective approach named ‘4 S Model’ which means Seeking Healthcare as a Behaviour, Support through Education, Support from Men through Male Involvement, and Sustaining Change in the Community. As many as 150,000 girls and women have benefited from four intensive operational projects.

About Smile Foundation

Smile Foundation is a national level development organisation benefitting over 300,000 underprivileged children, their families and the community directly through 158 welfare projects on subjects such as education, healthcare, livelihood, and women empowerment across 25 states of India. Adopting a life cycle approach of development, Smile Foundation focuses its interventions on children, their families and the community.

New Delhi : Smile Foundation presented the 2nd edition of its sensitization cum fund raising initiative “Cook for a Smile”, which was co-presented by Cleo County and endorsed and supported by three times Michelin Starred Chef Vikas Khanna. The event was hosted by Hyatt Regency. 11 top boardroom leaders joined this initiative to battle it out over a cook-off to ensure that cause wins. Funds raised through the campaign will be utilized in providing education and nutrition for 1000 children of Smile Foundation with the mission ‘Nutrition for Better Literacy’.

Elaborating on his fondness for the initiative Chef Vikas Khanna, Goodwill Ambassador – Nutrition for Better Literacy, Smile Foundation, said, “Lack of proper nutrition is a fundamental issue and one of the biggest roadblocks in the growth and development of children in our country. I am proud to be associated with Smile Foundation as their Goodwill Ambassador for Nutrition for Better Literacy and I hope I am able to sensitize many more people about this issue that faces us as a developing country. Cook for a Smile has been a big step in helping us reach out to stakeholders and by end of this year I pledge to benefit around 5000 kids through this initiative.”

Corporate leaders took a day off to don the Chef’s toques with one mission of providing ‘Nutrition for Better Literacy’ which would benefit the children of Smile Foundation across India. Chef Vikas Khanna divided the participating corporate leaders into two groups. Each group included a team of Smile Foundation kids who enjoyed assisting the participants and brought in added excitement to the competition. Each participant prepared a signature dish of his or her choice in the allotted time and the same was tasted and judged by Chef Vikas Khanna.

Cook for a Smile participants were:

Mr. Amit Modi, Director, ABA Corp. – Cleo County
Mr. Aseem Kapoor, Area Director – North West India – Hyatt Regency
Mr. Gulbahar Taurani, Director Marketing, Consumer Lifestyle – Philips India Limited
Mr. Hicham Lahkim Bennani, Director Commercial – Air France KLM
Mr. Rajat Jain, Managing Director – Xerox India Limited
Mr. Avinash Venkat, Director, Human Resources, South Asia & Sub Saharan Africa – Avery Dennison
Mr. Ashutosh Chadha, Director Corporate Affairs – South Asia – Intel
Mr. Tapan Ray, Managing Director and CEO – Nature Bio-Foods Limited
Dr. Shashi Kant Baliyan, Managing Director – ClearMedi Healthcare
Ms. Ratna Chadha, Chief Executive (TIRUN Travel Marketing India Representative) – Royal Caribbean Cruise
Mr. Sanjay Sethi, CEO & Co Founder – Shopclues.com

“We are proud to be associated with an initiative such as ‘Cook for a Smile’ which is a seamless extension of our own efforts at making a difference to the community. Our mission to provide authentic hospitality constantly inspires us to help deliver impactful change in society. Together with Smile Foundation and committed individuals such as Chef Vikas Khanna, we are proud to have been able to raise funds and awareness for ‘Nutrition for Better Literacy’. While we focus towards nourishment with this initiative, our company-wide philanthropic and environmental platform – Hyatt Thrive –continues to undertake various fund-raising and volunteer activities through the year that emphasize our belief in Human Care and the Human Spirit,” said Yasmin D. Poonegar, Director of Corporate Communications, Hyatt Hotels & Resorts – Southwest Asia Ltd.

Knowing the children’s fondness for all things sweet, Chef Marin Leuthard, Executive Chef of Hyatt Regency Delhi, and his team, also set up a special pastry counter for the children of Smile Foundation at the event.

“One in every three malnourished children in the world is from India. The consequences are long-term and it prevents children’s overall growth, learning ability, going to school and a chance to come out of the vicious cycle of poverty for yet another generation. Thereby it also prevents the country’s growth. In order to bring some real and permanent changes in the lives of the most deserving children across India, we have brought together corporate leaders and trendsetters under our ‘Cook for a Smile’ initiative with celebrated Chef Vikas Khanna,” says Mr. Vikram Singh Verma, Chief Operating Officer, Smile Foundation.

About ‘Cook for a Smile’

‘Cook for a Smile’ is a charity cooking contest wherein corporate CEOs come together with Chef Vikas Khanna to cook, contest and raise support for Smile Foundation’s children. Smile Foundation believes in sensitizing the privileged section of the society so that they take active participation in the process of development.

To know more about the campaign, log onto – http://www.smilefoundationindia.org/cookforsmile/.

New Delhi : Smile Foundation, a national level development organization joined hands with FIS (NYSE: FIS), the world’s largest global provider dedicated to banking and payments technologies, in India to support education of underprivileged children and livelihood for marginalized youth. Under this partnership, eight new Smile Twin e Learning Program (STeP) centres and five new Mission Education centres will be introduced in Mumbai, Chennai, Bengaluru, Gurgaon and Chandigarh.

This initiative would support as many as 3750 children who would be benefitted from the ‘Mission Education program’and 2250 youths will be added under the STeP program.

Speaking about this association Mr. Vikram Singh Verma, COO, Smile Foundation said, “Education is the most effective tool that can help the less privileged children come out of the vicious cycle of poverty and suffering, and transform into an empowered next generation. Whereas knowledge of market-oriented job skills such as English, basic computer, personality development, retail management, relevant soft skills etc and makes them employed in retail and service sectors. We would like to thank FIS for helping us extending our reach further.

” Mamta Wasan Senior Vice President, Human Resources, FIS India, said “We are very delighted to work with Smile Foundation on an issue of paramount importance to the country – Education. This is a long journey and FIS in its small way hopes to make a big contribution financially as well as through our employee’s time”

About Smile Foundation:

Smile Foundation is a national level development organisation benefitting over 300,000 underprivileged children, their families and the community directly through 158 welfare projects on subjects such as education, healthcare, livelihood, and women empowerment across 25 states of India. Adopting a life cycle approach of development, Smile Foundation focuses its interventions on children, their families and the community.

About Smile Twin e-Learning Programme (STeP)

Smile Twin e-Learning Programme (STeP) is a national level livelihood programme that trains urban underprivileged youth with market-oriented job skills such as English, basic computer, personality development, retail management, relevant soft skills etc and makes them employed in retail and service sectors across India. More than 13,750 youth have been trained and 9850 have been placed in over 140 brands through 35 operational projects across India.

About Mission Education

Mission Education is national level programme which provides basic education and healthcare to underprivileged children, with the belief that whether you are addressing healthcare, poverty, population control, unemployment or human rights, there’s no better place to start than in the corridors of education. More than 200,000 children have directly benefited from Mission Education programme since 2002. At present, the programme is reaching out to 16,500 children directly through 70 projects in 21 states across India.

Nutrition for better literacy to 5000 underprivileged children

Mumbai : Smile Foundation and three times Michelin-starred Chef Vikas Khanna joined hands to create an exciting and unique charity cookout – ‘Cook for a Smile’, in which 12 top corporate leaders took a day off from their busy lives to don Chef’s toques and re-create their favourite recipe with the sole mission of supporting Smile Foundation’s ‘Nutrition for Better Literacy’ campaign.

Each corporate leader was joined by the junior master chefs from Smile Foundation at the event which was presented by Hyatt Hotels and held at Grand Hyatt, Mumbai. PepsiCo, Kitchen Aid and CNBC TV 18 also lent their support to the initiative.

Arjun Bafna, Managing Director, Seven Islands Harley-Davidson; Tejbir Singh Sawhney, CEO, Hindustan Colas Ltd.; Manoj Chacko, CEO, Kuoni Business Travel, Kuoni India; Sharavan Kumar, CEO, Children’s Film Society India; David Mansfield, Area Director & General Manager, Grand Hyatt, Mumbai; Amarendra Kulkarni, CMD, General Instruments Consortium; Dr. Ramen Goel, Ex-President, All India Association for Advanced Research on Obesity; Nityanand Shetty, Managing Director, Essen Vision Software Ltd.; Archana Kochhar, Founder & CEO, Archana Couture; Mohit Jain, Regional Director, Asia Pacific, Kitchen Aid; Vishal Gondal, Founder and CEO, GOQii Inc. and Arun Chatterjee, Vice President- Depositary Receipts, BNY Mellon India, participated in ‘Cook for a Smile’ and supported the cause.

Funds raised from the initiative will be used to provide education and nutrition to 5,000 children for one year. Chef Vikas Khanna has also joined Smile Foundation as a Goodwill Ambassador for its ‘Nutrition for Better Literacy’ campaign

Mumbai : As hosts of the Golden Jubilee Inter IIT Sports Meet, IIT Bombay launched Mashal, the first ever pan IIT social initiative, at Open Air Theatre, IIT Bombay, for the betterment of the primary education scenario in the country.

Renowned actor Shreyas Talpade personally endorsed Mashal and was present at its kick-off during Aquatics Meet, to handover the Inter IIT Torch to the captains of all the IITs, and to assign them the responsibility of conducting Mashal runs at their campus. Mashal was officially launched during the Opening Ceremony of the Aquatics leg of the Inter IIT Sports Meet, on September 30, 2014. The mascot of the Meet is a leopard that goes by the name Chhawa. A model of Chhawa holding the Inter IIT torch was unveiled by the guest of honour Virdhawal Khade, the country’s fastest swimmer.

The first run in the series has been flagged off, and runs at other IITs will follow subsequently. The IIT Bombay student fraternity showed excitement and eagerness to participate in this ‘run for a cause’ and over 1000 students are expected to participate in the mini-marathon.

Shashank Srivastava, General Secretary, Sports Affairs of IIT Bombay, said “We have been organizing long distance running competitions in the institute regularly, but Mashalhas met with an enthusiastic response we haven’t seen before. Athletes and non-athletes alike are going to run for this noble cause.”

Based on the number of people participating, funds will be generated by the sponsors Flipkart and Gionee and donated to Smile Foundation, a national level development organisation, the official charity partner for this initiative. Smile Foundation will utilize these funds in its Mission Education programme supporting primary education of the underprivileged children in our society. The Organizing Committee decided to raise funds through runs which will take place in all 16 IITs. The Inter IIT Torch that symbolizes bringing light into the lives of the children will be sent to all the IITs and the students will run with the torch.

Santanu Mishra, Co- Founder and Executive Trustee, Smile Foundation said, “We believe that unless members of the civil society are involved proactively in the process of development, sustainable change will not happen. Smile Foundation has always strongly felt that this society can be a better place to live in only when each individual works towards a developed society. I would like to thank IIT Bombay along with the whole fraternity for supporting our children.”

Asmit Jain, Events Head of the student organizing committee, said, “Mashal started off as an idea to unite the IITs towards one noble purpose, and with the help of Smile Foundation we are now seeing it materialize on a scale we hadn’t expected before.”

Smile Foundation, a national level development organisation, is conducting an innovative series of Teachers’ Training and Capacity Building programmes across India. Education of children, when they are the first generation learners, depends solely on the levels of training and passion of the teachers. It helps the children stay in the education centres, increase their learning, prepares them to get mainstreamed in reputed schools and also helps the children to cope with the teaching methodologies prevalent there.

Each of the three-day training programmes is residential in nature and has been scheduled for all four regions of India. The modules include Pedagogical Skills, Library Management and Computer Teaching.

The first programme for North India was held in New Delhi which included 37 teachers and instructors from 23 grassroots NGOs from Uttar Pradesh, Bihar, Madhya Pradesh, Jammu & Kashmir, Chandigarh & Punjab, Haryana, Rajasthan and Delhi NCR.

The training programme for West India was held in Mumbai which included teachers from 23 NGOs from Maharashtra, Gujarat and Goa.

The training programme for South India and East India are being held simultaneously between 10th and 12th of March, 2014 in Hyderabad and Kolkata, respectively.

“Quality of learning for the small children, who could be first generation learners, begins with a passionate and skilful teacher who creates interest in the classroom. If we expect a child to learn effectively, our teachers have to create that interest and excitement. This effort of ours complements the Right to Education (RTE) Act where Smile Foundation would like to see 20,000 children to be mainstreamed in reputed schools and help them build a bright future,” says Mr. Vikram Singh Verma, Chief Operating Officer, Smile Foundation. He adds, “Teaching should be creative, engaging and effective especially for the underprivileged children. When teachers apply simple yet right methodologies such as story-telling, use of colourful library cards etc. for better use of the libraries, it creates interest amongst the children in studies and enhances their learning.”

Wilde Ganzen, the Dutch international development agency, is supporting Smile Foundation in conducting this first series of teachers’ training and capacity building programme which has been designed to take advantage of the Right to Education (RTE) Act.