Madhya Pradesh

Health Camps in 20 slums
in Delhi NCR

Health camps were conducted in twenty different slum areas of Delhi NCR by Smile Foundation with support from National Small Industries Corporation Limited (NSIC). This series of health camps is part of an Integrated Community Development Project that was implemented by Smile Foundation in association with NSIC. This project focuses at the holistic development of the underprivileged living in the slums of Delhi NCR.

These health camps were conducted in areas namely Rangpuri, Tughlakabad, Dhaula Kuan, Mansarovar Park, Rohini, Sunder Nagri, Shastri Park, Jahangir Puri, Kalyanvas, Tilpath, Majnu Ka Tila, Gurgaon, Motiya Khan, Khori Kingsway Camp, Janak Puri, Bhalaswa, Tahirpur, Wazirpur, Nand Nagri and Faridabad.

The objective of conducting these health camps was to create awareness of general health among the people, providing general health care services and counseling them on basic healthcare and hygiene. As many as 5021 people were benefitted.

Education using the Internet

Smile Foundation with support from MTS – the mobile telecom service brand of SSTL – has introduced education using the internet, in five of its Mission Education centres. These five centres are in Delhi, Gurgaon, Mumbai, Kolkata and Bangalore.

This innovative initiative will focus on enhancing learning capabilities of the underprivileged children and making them aware of the “Global village”. Internet aided learning will be integrated within the regular course curriculum at these Mission Education centers to achieve the laid out objectives in other centres soon.

Over 8500 youth employed

The Smile Twin e-Learning Programme has so far successfully placed 8582 young boys and girls in retail and service sector organizations like Shopper's Stop, HDFC Bank, ICICI Bank, Westside Stores, Café Coffee Day, Big Bazaar, to name a few. The programme has so far trained 12,048 students.

An exposure visit and placement interview session was recently organized by the partner organization JSS in Mumbai, where companies like TATA Aig, Reliance Fresh, Eureka Forbes and Dominos Pizza, were present to select students for various job openings.

Babies are a nice way to start people

Having your first child is indeed a moment of blessing. Holding your baby for the first time, the little ones eyes, its smile, the feeble cries, everything makes the mother shed tears. Tears of happiness. But for some people, this first moment is completely different. Sunita is one of those few.

Sunita's husband works as a daily wage labourer and the couple lives in very poor conditions in Shashinagar, Delhi. When the couple came to know of Sunita's pregnancy, happiness did flow around the house, but an undercurrent of worry. From the very start, with a lot of complications showed themselves in Sunita's pregnancy. Despite that, thecouple never saw a doctor and decided to have the delivery done at the hands of a midwife at home, mainly owing to their difficult financial condition. The outcome. The midwife could not handle the complications and the baby was born dead.

The couple was distraught with the loss, when Rohit, Sunita's husband, learnt about the Swabhiman centre in their community. He took Sunita there for counseling where the counselors explained the couple the importance of having an institutional delivery, ante-natal and post-natal care. Following that day, Sunita kept going back to the centre for counseling sessions from time to time and after a few months became pregnant once again. This time, better informed and prepared, the couple took all the measures needed and delivered a healthy baby girl in the nearest government hospital.

Sunita and Rohit have ensured that all their friends and family do not repeat the mistake they made. They have been guiding all the young couples around them to attend the counseling sessions at the Swabhiman centre as a must. They have named their daughter Sarita.

Veeramani's IPS Dreams

K Veeramani is a native of Annanur, a village just four kilometers away from Avadi, Thiruvillar District in Tamil Nadu. He lives here with his mother and elder sister. Veeramani's father passed away when he was four years old, leaving behind the mother alone to win bread for the family, which she did by working as a building construction labour with a local contractor's group.

Initially Veeramani and his sister, both were going to school, and despite a tight budget the mother managed to keep things running smoothly. But soon after that she started keeping unwell, becoming unable to work regularly thus leading to a lot of monetary difficulties.
Because of the poor financial condition, Veeramani and his sister's school was obviously dropped from the family's priority list, and Veeramani started distributing newspapers to add whatever little he could to his mother's irregular income. Veeramani's case came into notice of a project coordinator of Smile Foundation who visited Veeramani's mother and convinced her to send him for remedial classes at a Mission Education centre.

Understanding that Veeramani could continue with his job and study at the same time, his mother agreed to send him for the remedial classes. Veeramani has been studying at the Mission Education Center for one year now. He is a very bright and dedicated student and wants to become an IPS officer.

Siemens for community health services in Bihar

Smile Foundation launched its first mobile hospital Smile on Wheels for the state of Bihar with support from Siemens Ltd. This mobile healthcare initiative is providing comprehensive healthcare services for the underprivileged in the villages of Madhepura district of Bihar. The project is a first of its kind in the state and is benefiting over 25,000 people in 10 villages of Madhepura, namely Sahugarh-1, Sahugarh-2, Bhatutola, Mithai, Balam, Shripur, Chakla, Sabela, Puniyahi and Sukhasan. With the launch of this new project, Smile Foundation now has 20 mobile hospitals operational across India.

This project is being supported by the Corporate Citizenship initiative of Siemens Ltd. And aims to meet the primary healthcare needs of the underprivileged population through preventive, promotive and curative healthcare services.

Camping for health with Tech Shastra

Smile Foundation is association with Tech Shastra- digital partner of Surf Excel Matic organised three Smile Health Camps for the people living in four slums of Delhi, Mumbai and Bangalore.

It was found that in the target communities most people suffered from common ailments like skin infections, fever, cold and cough, dehydration and anemia, but remain seriously neglected. Ailments were diagnosed and prescribed with suitable medication by the team of doctors. Besides this, growth check-ups for children, treatment for malnutrition cases, dental check-ups and eye check-ups were some of the services that were provided. Over 700 people benefitted from these camps.

Sensitization activities were also conducted within the community to sensitize the people on common preventable health problems and to improve the health and hygiene of the area.

4000 children get their Right to Education

The Mission Education programme has successfully mainstreamed 4000 children across the country, from the bridge and remedial education centres to formal schools. While there have been speculations about the effectiveness of the Right to Education Act, effective since April 2010, Smile Foundation, through this programme has been able to provide 4000 children their right to compulsory education.

There are currently 11,500 children beneficiaries in various Mission Education centres across 19 states.
The summer break at all the educational centres was focused on engaging the children in extra-curricular activities, some special ones being, a summer camp in Mumbai by Sparsh Charitable Trust, annual sports meet in Jalpaiguri by Hriday, Van Mahotsav in NOIDA by Nai Disha and a vacation to Goa by Amcha Ghar in Mumbai. In addition, all the projects conducted parents meetings to keep them updated about their children's development and performance.
Besides this, two boys from Holy Mother School, an implementing partner in Mumbai, got selected in the under-15 cricket team of Mumbai.

A toast for Salim's good health

A rickshaw puller. The soul bread winner for a family of five. An ailing alcoholic. This is what would have defined Salim, of Bagrana Kacchi Basti in Jaipur a year back. But things are different now.

Salim till a year back, used to be an alcoholic draining his meager income in drinking, so much so that two square meals every day was a luxury for the family. To add to the woes, he developed an abnormal abdominal swelling and kept falling ill and could not upkeep with work. Compelled to earn, his eldest son, only 14, started pulling the rickshaw.

During one of the awareness sessions conducted by the Smile on Wheels team, Salim's wife learned about the healthcare services provided in the mobile hospital in their community. She then took Salim to the Smile on Wheels team on its next visit to the area and discussed about the swelling and Salim's drinking habit.

When the going gets tough, the tough get going

Chaitali's parents say that she is not less than a son and she herself says “I am not afraid of dreaming big”. Transformation, is what truly should be said, happened to this 24 year old in matter of just a few months.

For Chaitali of Budge Budge, Kolkata, there was nothing more important than her family. Her parents with their meager income also, brought up Chaitali and her younger brother, with great aspirations. They sent them to school and planned to send both of them to college as well, so they could choose a better career and life for themselves. But life had separate plans for the family. Chaitali's brother was taken away from them because of a fatal road accident.

Suraksha aur Swabhiman

A sensitization campaign – Suraksha aur Swabhiman, (security and dignity for women) was organized at Jantar Mantar, in New Delhi. This was an effort to sensitize male members of the society and to ensure their participation for making the society safer and friendlier for women. In order to intensify the issue and to find a proactive solution in the form of involving men, some sensitizing activates like slogan writing, street play, poems, one-act play, caricatures, etc. related to the issues of safety, security and dignity for women were conducted. Few young boys and girls came together symbolically to show the way towards making a safer and better place for women. The youth came forward enthusiastically and participated in the campaign.

27,919 people treated in three months

Smile Foundation through its Smile on Wheels programme, has extended healthcare services to over 27,000 people in just three months.

Apart from the scheduled roaster visits of the mobile hospitals to the target areas, 14 vaccination and immunization camps, 9 special health camps and one special awareness session in Varanasi for women and children were conducted.