Integrated Development in Madhya Pradesh
Smile Foundation with support from Gas Authority of India Limited (GAIL) has started an Integrated Education and Health Development Project in the state of Madhya Pradesh. This project is operational in five villages of Guna district in the state namely – Ahmedapur, Bublakhedi, Bawarikheda, Chainpura and Padarkheri. This integrated project is focused on providing education to children and primary healthcare services to the people, especially children and women in the identified areas.
GAIL that has one of its oil and gas projects located in Vijaipur, has supported this integrated development project with the objective of addressing the critical development needs of the people living in the areas surrounding the project in Vijaipur of Guna district. This integrated development project has been launched and will be providing education to over 300 children through bridge education and remedial education centers. Along with this, it will also provide healthcare to over 1000 people in the district through quarterly health camps.
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.
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.
Raised very protectively herself, the situation was an emotional turmoil for Chaitali. But the girl stood as the pillar of strength for the family. She enrolled in the Smile Twin e-Learning Programme, as the first step. The next six months were marked with back breaking hard work. But was followed by the sweetest fruits. Chaitali earned herself a job in a leading firm with a pay neither she nor her parents had thought she could earn.
Chaitali does not let her mother work anymore. Her father’s condition has not improved, but has not deteriorated further. He is undergoing good medical treatment now. Chaitali is sure that the hard work she has put in will be getting her a promotion, a good incentive and a good hike in her salary this year. She only wishes her brother was with her today.
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.
