Under education, Smile Foundation strives to promote and catalyze universal education among children from underprivileged section of society. The aim being that education should lead to change not only in the amount of knowledge gained but also in the abilities to do, to think and to acquire habits, skills and attitude which characterize an individual who is socially accepted and adjusted. The term universalizsation includes universal enrolment, universal retention and universal achievement of an acceptable level of reading, writing and arithmetic. We at Smile believe that Quality Education is key to overcoming poverty in a single generation. And it is also fundamental in creating a future for human security, community development and national progress. It is an enormous challenge. It is also an immense opportunity!
Acknowledging the significance of a healthy child, Children''s health becomes an issue of vital concern to Smile; and health awareness is an integral part of child education. Smile''s strategy for health is two pronged:
- Provision of health services, on regular basis, through static clinics as add-on to the education project.
- Camp approach, on regular basis, in virgin areas (where there is no Smile-supported education project).
The various ‘health care services / activities’ supported by Smile cover the following:
- Health and hygiene awareness
- Health check-up including dental health
- Curative treatment including referral
- Adolescent health education and counseling
- Pediatric and surgery camps
- A special initiative started in the pilot phase is " Smile on Wheels" a multi centric mega healthcare project
Smile Foundation with its commitment for supporting child welfare initiatives, undertakes on its own various campaigns from time to time on social issues relating to children and / or enabling children to become catalyst for change. It also encourages such advocacy efforts undertaken by its partner organizations.
Further to its mission to empower children through education, Smile also responds to the call of humanity in times of emergencies like Natural calamities etc. Be it the Gujarat earthquake, the Tsunami, Mumbai Floods or the Kashmir earthquake. Smile thus has come up with a Disaster relief and rehabilitation policy, wherein it ties up with local NGO''s and institutions to enable genuine and effective responses to critical local needs and realities.
In its endeavour to achieve its mission through key thrust areas, Smile supports projects in partnership with individuals and institutions. Besides financial assistance, support is also extended in the spheres of training and materials, infrastructure and organization development. The various types of support extended by SMILE are as follows:
- Supporting innovative, need based projects - from concept development to infrastructure development and project management.
- Catalytic activities such as
a) Capacity building (institutionalization of individual / un-organized initiatives)
b) Technical backstopping / training
c) Infrastructure strengthening
d) Logistics support (for quality of services).
- Initiating awareness campaigns on issues concerning children and youths
- Supporting projects exclusively focused on girl child / adolescent girls, their socio-economic empowerment
Besides the key trust areas, Smile has initiated special projects such as:
Swabhiman, which is a Safety & Awareness Campaign, seeks to address the safety issues faced by women and adolescent girls, helps them in enhancing their skills to take control of their lives with less fear and empowers them with resources they need to recognize, defend against and escape from violence. We also take account of male involvement to sensitize them towards their community safety.
- ‘Individual Support Programme‘ - Smile has initiated the Individual Support Programme to support
a) under education excellence for underprivileged children
b) Health support for critical cases
c) Individual cases pertaining to rape, molestation, child abuse, child marriage under project Swabhiman
- ‘You can make a difference campaign’ – This project intends to encourage privileged children & people towards becoming credible citizens of India and contribute their efforts towards helping underprivileged.
- ‘Volunteerism’ – Smile appreciates the contribution made by individuals in terms of giving quality time, specialized skills, fiscal support without expecting or demanding anything in return, it may have varied shades and actions ranging from well-being of their neighbour, community or society at large.
- ‘Nurturing for Success’ - The project aims at giving children from impoverished backgrounds knowledge, skills and self-respect to resist becoming ensnared in risky behaviors and to build values, character and self-confidence. Renowned personalities and successful achievers donate their skills in motivational and informative sessions through personal encounters and give the exposure on different facets of life, which are essential for one''s wholesome development and upbringing.
Concerned about sustainability of initiatives supported by it. Smile consciously guides, encourages and supports resource raising efforts of its partner organizations. Also for the purpose, Smile, in-house, has, of late, established a Resource Cell at its head office in Delhi with objectives of facilitating resource raising for attaining sustainability of projects hitherto supported by it. One of the major objective(s) of the Resource Cell is to explore ‘CSR opportunities’ with corporate houses and facilitating functional linkages with partner organizations leading to programme support.