Nalanda Foundation has joined hands with Smile Foundation to support healthcare projects in remote rural areas of India through Smile Foundation’s mobile hospital project Smile on Wheels. The two places where the project runs is Bilaspur in Himachal Pradesh and the other project is being run at Jammu. The SOW project in Bilaspur, Himachal was initiated in 2014-15.
The Project was initiated in year 2014 to increase the access to Primary Healthcare and Eye care facilities through periodical eye screening camps in 42 villages of Sadar, Naina Devi, Jhandutta and Ghumarwin blocks in the Bilaspur district, Himachal Pradesh which were identified through field visits etc.
Chief Medical Officer Dr. M.L. Kaushal, Superintendent of Police Shri Ashok Kumar, Block Medical Officer Dr. Chandel, Shri Alok Bhargava, COO – Social Inclusion and over a 100 villagers came together to welcome Smile on Wheels during the launch ceremony.
Besides this, the other objectives are to improve health seeking behavior among the school going children, conduct IEC/BCC activities to generate the demand and promote preventive measures for improving health seeking behavior and facilitate specialty services by developing linkages with nearby Government Institution for referral services. Till March 2018, 27,213 beneficiaries have been benefitted from this project. Under this initiative, 122 cataract surgeries were also conducted to support people who were diagnosed to be suffering from cataract.
SOW Project in Jammu (initiated in 2017-18):
■ IL&FS group has developed a tunnel between Chanani (Udhampur district) and Nashri (Ramban district) bypassing about 40 km along existing National Highway. The social catchment area for the project comprises of about 28 inhabited census villages, 2 municipal towns (Batote and Chenani) and a hill station (Patnitop) along the existing NH.
■ In the first phase of operations till March 2018, 11240 beneficiaries were covered through 193 OPDs. Total of 2116 beneficiaries were reached through 35 IEC activities. Smile Foundation is also focusing on School Health and Community Health programs as well.