NEW DELHI: Smile Foundation has been conferred with the “EDUCATION EXCELLENCE AWARDS – 2013” by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industries (ASSOCHAM) and The Education Post. The awards also felicitated Smile Foundation with certificate of ‘Leader in Social venture Philanthropy in Child Education.’
The awards aim to promote university / institute and individuals performing their best in education sector.
Entries had been invited from hundreds of Universities, Engineering Colleges, Management Colleges, Medical Colleges, Certified Training Centres, Academicians, NGOs working on education, and Corporate working on education through CSR etc.
The recipients under other categories included IMI, New Delhi (Best Management Institute in Corporate Relation); Institute of Management IRMA University, Ahmedabad (Leader in Family Business and Entrepreneurship); FORE School of Management, New Delhi (Best Management Institute for Impact Potential); and NTPC Ltd. (Best PSU Promoting Technical Education), among others.
Mr. Bhupendrasinh M. Chudasama, Minister of Education, Govt. of Gujarat presented the Education Excellence Award 2013 to Mr. Santanu Mishra, Co-founder & Executive Trustee, Smile Foundation during the awards function in Ahemedabad.
Smile Foundation is a national level development organisation reaching out to more than 300,000 underprivileged children, youth and women directly every year through 158 welfare projects on subjects such as education, healthcare, youth employability, 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.
Report by India Education bureau, New Delhi: Smile Foundation has been conferred with the “EDUCATION EXCELLENCE AWARDS – 2013” by the Associated Chambers of Commerce and Industries (ASSOCHAM) and The Education Post. The awards also felicitated Smile Foundation with certificate of ‘Leader in Social venture Philanthropy in Child Education.’ The awards aim to promote university / institute and individuals performing their best in education sector.
Entries had been invited from hundreds of Universities, Engineering Colleges, Management Colleges, Medical Colleges, Certified Training Centres, Academicians, NGOs working on education, and Corporate working on education through CSR etc.
The recipients under other categories included IMI, New Delhi (Best Management Institute in Corporate Relation); Institute of Management IRMA University, Ahmedabad (Leader in Family Business and Entrepreneurship); FORE School of Management, New Delhi (Best Management Institute for Impact Potential); and NTPC Ltd. (Best PSU Promoting Technical Education), among others. Mr. Bhupendrasinh M. Chudasama, Minister of Education, Govt. of Gujarat presented the Education Excellence Award 2013 to Mr. Santanu Mishra, Co-founder & Executive Trustee, Smile Foundation during the awards function in Ahemedabad.
Smile Foundation is a national level development organisation reaching out to more than 300,000 underprivileged children, youth and women directly every year through 158 welfare projects on subjects such as education, healthcare, youth employability, 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.
Santanu Mishra, executive trustee and co-founder of Smile Foundation
Traveling around India is both an astonishing, thrilling as well as a disturbing experience. Wherever the road takes you, miles and miles of barren land make it impossible to be unaware of impoverished areas, dysfunctional health centers and elementary schools. Dozens of people in line waiting for water and the intense gender disparity are a grim reminder of the hard fact that India is a country of immense diversity and sharp inequalities. How does one make progress when there are so many issues to be addressed? Santanu Mishra, executive trustee and co-founder of Smile Foundation
Santanu Mishra, executive trustee and co-founder of Smile Foundation
In 2002, a group of young corporate professionals with a modest small town middle class background realized that it was their responsibility to give back to society. Santanu Mishra went to Delhi along with some friends seeking a job opportunity, and because of the economic liberalization in the 1990s, they reached their financial goals earlier than expected.
“We used to meet and discuss regularly, exchanging our professional experiences. One thing that was common in all our discussions was ‘giving back’. I always wanted to give back to the society once I settled in my life”, remembers Mishra. It was driven by this will that he co-founded Smile Foundation while still working full-time.
But he soon realized that to run the organization on a day to day basis he had to make a choice. “In 2005 I took a calculated risk and I quit my full time job. I began structuring Smile Foundation professionally so that we could achieve a larger vision”, he says.
Smile Foundation’s Mission Education Project Centre in Agartala, Tripura
Smile Foundation is a national level development organization working with a life-cycle approach of development focusing on children, their families and the community, addressing youth employment, women empowerment and healthcare issues. Their core area of intervention, however, is child education: “We truly believe that education is the end as well as the means. However, we realized that a child will never go to school regularly if the family is not taken care of, the mother is not empowered or the family health is not well”, says Mishra.
At the moment the foundation is reaching out to more than 300,000 underprivileged children, youth and women directly every year through 158 welfare projects across 25 states of India. Their initiatives include Swabhiman (women empowerment), Smile on Wheels (mobile hospitals), and Smile Twin e-Learning Programme (youth employability) along with Mission Education (child education) as a natural progression.
The Smile on Wheels initiative is a mobile hospital programme aiming to redress the common problems of primary health care
One of the most impactful projects led by Smile is the Child For Child programme, which brings together children from both the backgrounds – affluent and deprived, in an attempt to foster a sense of responsibility in the privileged children towards their less privileged counterparts, early in life. “We believed that there was an urgency to sensitize the privileged children too. If this happpens from an early age, they will grow up as socially responsible citizens”, says Mishra. Last year alone the programme reached to 417 districts of the country, engaging more than 900 schools and sensitized about one million children, along with their parents and teachers.
Girls go through their daily lessons at ME centre in Khora Colony, near Ghaziabad
One of Smile Foundation’s major challenges is the difficulty in finding the right professionals such as doctors, teachers, project managers and community workers to work in remote areas. Also, retaining these professionals, is another major problem as tackling development issues are a serious, long term and complex endeavor. “Next challenge is getting right kind of community based partners. As many of our supporters are corporate, achieving the ‘perfection’ outcome according to their expectation can sometime be a challenge within the ‘imperfection’ at the grassroots level”, informs the Mishra.
With over 350 professional working full-time, from managerial work force to community workers at the grassroots and more than a hundred volunteers and interns, they expect to reach 500,000 people on an annual basis by 2015.
Smile on Wheels, the innovative national level mobile hospital programme of Smile Foundation, was recently flagged off by the talented actress Sonakshi Sinha in Mumbai. This one-of-its-kind programme is designed to take curative, preventive and promotive healthcare services to the doorsteps of urban poor and underserved villagers. Smile team shares more about this smiling endeavour on Halabol platform.
So what is Smile on Wheels all about? Another healthcare van that will provide services to under-privileged section of society! What does it do that would make people actually smile. Team Smile Foundation joins Halabol platform once again to share more on this. The whole team is proud to have the patronage of Sonakshi Sinha for this esteemed venture.
But more than the celebrity presence, the infrastructural facilities of Smile on Wheels steals all attention.
“Equipped with the appropriate healthcare expertise and medical equipments, each Smile on Wheels mobile hospital provides comprehensive healthcare services in selected clusters of urban communities or remote villages which are in dire need of healthcare facilities. Each Smile on Wheels is equipped with advanced laboratory facilities (semi auto analyzer), X-Ray machine with facility of auto film developer, ECG machine, life support system, refrigerator, power back up with digitalized distribution system and air-conditioning etc. Smile on Wheels is also equipped with Global Positioning System to monitor it centrally in real time.”
Now that’s a big Wow! Isn’t it great to have a mobile hospital which is also accompanied by a team of qualified healthcare and medical staff comprising of doctor, laboratory technician, nurse, project coordinator, community mobilizer and driver delivering best of healthcare facilities right at the doorsteps of those who need it most!
“Smile on Wheels is equipped with digital screen TV screen, DVD and audio visual systems in order to educate and sensitize the target population on behaviour change communication. The objective is to create health seeking behaviour of individuals we as well as the community. The idea to have such a thing came up in 2006 in the form of a mobile hospital model and named it Smile on Wheels. The model takes best available healthcare solutions to the doorsteps of the urban and rural poor. The two-pronged approach brings quality healthcare services to the doorsteps of the needy and promotes awareness and health seeking behaviour among the underprivileged.”
Mr Shyamashis Bhattacharya, Trustee Shakuntalam Charitable Foundation handing over the key to Mr Vikram Singh Verma COO Smile Foundation
The good thing is that Smile on Wheels is a unique mobile hospital programme that seeks to address problems of accessibility, availability and affordability of primary healthcare with a special focus on children and women, in urban slums and remote rural areas. It aims at providing comprehensive health services in the communities or villages of selected districts which are either very far from the nearest heath care facility or people of areas cannot afford and access the private or governmental health care services available.
“At present Smile on Wheels programme is taking curative, preventive and promotive healthcare to the doorsteps of urban poor and underserved villagers benefitting 231,000 lives directly in a year through 19 projects in 265 remote villages and urban slums across India. Like various renowned celebrities and public figures, Sonakshi Sinha has been associated with Smile Foundation and has been a part of our various endeavours. She really loved the news of introducing Smile on Wheels for the urban poor of Mumbai recently and came forward to support the initiative. This was the first Smile on Wheels project in Mumbai and the 20th such project in India. Leading celebrities always wish to get associated with a social cause which they identify with. Millions of fans adore them and when they join a good cause or campaign, it gets due attention.”
Indeed, Sonakshi Sinha was very happy to be a part of this noble endeavour.
In her words –
“Good health is a basic human right and sadly its one the most neglected thing in today’s world. I am really pleased to associate with Smile Foundation’s new initiative, Smile on Wheels mobile hospital. I am sure Smile on Wheels mobile hospital will prove to be a beautiful Diwali gift for the deserving communities in Mumbai bringing good health, survival and hope. I applaud the efforts of Smile Foundation for bringing best possible healthcare to the doorsteps of those who need it the most in the city of Mumbai.”
Halabol is equally proud of the contribution made by Smile Foundation through their Smile on Wheels programme. No wonder, Smile Foundation has received numerous awards for Smile on Wheels programme which include Healthcare Excellence Award 2012 and GE-Healthcare Modern Medicare Award. The World Health Care Congress has recognised Smile on Wheels as the ‘Unique Delivery Model’ in taking healthcare to the poor.
Halabol also cheers for the celebrities who lend their presence and support to such campaigns. Hoping to see a great impact of Smile on Wheels campaign in coming future!
