Eight-year-old Sarita Kumari (name changed) patiently stands in line to get her homework checked. She has taken special care to ensure that the numbers she has written remain within the lines of the notebook. “I love to come here because the teachers are kind. In the school where my cousin goes, the teacher doesn’t have time to talk to him. When I get noticed in class, I feel so happy, She says. Sarita is a student of Smile Foundation’s Nithari Centre. Supported by R1 RCM, a provider of revenue cycle management solutions and physician advisory services for healthcare providers, the center has been running for the past seven years.
Residents of Nithari village of Noida send their children to study here. “It is a safe place for children. Girls are respected, have clean toilets and drinking water and the teaching is of good quality. When my children come home, they come with a smile,” said 39-year-old Meena Bhoi , says the mother of two Class 2 children.
Smile Foundation has many centers like Nithari to provide quality education to underprivileged children. Currently, Smile is serving underserved communities in over 2,200 villages and urban slums across 25 states through over 400 welfare projects, directly benefiting 1.5 million children. She also has projects focused on nutrition, health care and women empowerment. Most of their funding comes through corporate social responsibility initiatives. For example, PepsiCo funds Smile’s nutrition program.
For the past 16 years, Shantanu Mishra, Co-Founder and Executive Trustee of Smile Foundation, has been the driving force behind the organization. During the pandemic, Muskaan’s work has gone beyond traditional classroom-based projects. “We served about 27.7 million meals to migrant workers in 23 states. We have set up 45 mobile hospitals to provide health services to over one million people, especially in rural areas. Through our livelihood programme, over 28,000 underprivileged youth have secured employment, with around 10,000 young men and women being trained and employed during the pandemic alone,” he says.
Shantanu Mishra, 56, Co-Founder and Executive Trustee of Smile Foundation, Noida, Uttar Pradesh
For Mishra, it is peace of mind that is more important than happiness. “Some people say that the only way to find real peace is to give up all worldly attachments and go to the mountains. I think the easiest way to find peace of mind is to help someone… By serving the weak, we do something in the world. Doing a little bit to bring about change, but it is equally true that to bring about real, lasting change, it is important to sensitize people, inspire them to practice kindness and humanity in a real sense. And thus, maybe even help these people achieve happiness and peace of mind,” he says. This is the foundation’s big dream—social change driven by the citizens themselves.
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