Smile Foundation

Yesterday evening, totally out of the blue, my mom said "Smitha, I've written a small write up on Smile Foundation, will you put it on your blog?"

Of course I would, and here it is:

"Three women of our family (my sister, my daughter and me) came up with the idea of extending financial assistance to school drop outs, after witnessing an incident when a child rebuked by school staff for not paying fees, came crying to her mother. This triggered an awful fight between the father and mother, with the father saying 'let's put her in a Government school' and the mother saying, 'I'll go without food but we will pay the fees in this school, we need english medium'.

Thus the foundation to facilitate the education of the under privileged was started and registered in the year 2005, with specific purpose of helping school drop outs.  We started with the school of our maids children, and gradually went onto other such schools either close home or as word spread, which got referred to us. The idea was to identify and fund children who were keen on studying but unable to pay the school fees.

Smile itself was devised as an acronym representing the women in the family, our earlier generations who'd stood inspiration to us. 'Saraswathi Mahadas Indira Learning and Education' (Saraswathi Mahadas is my grandmother and Indira is my mother).

Our first school was Santosh Memorial School in Lakdikpul, which was run behind a car workshop. We then did Saraswathi Vidya Mandir in Srinagar Colony, Little Angels School also in Srinagar Colony, Andhra Girls High School, Narayanaguda (my school, a telugu medium school) and several others.

To date the foundation has enabled over fifty children through high school, and as we grew and our earliest children reached college, we decided to sponsor students through college as well, though that was a severe strain on resources. There were times it was so difficult that we thought we'd stop, but each time one of us thought that, the others gave it the needed impetus and energy, and we carried on.

In fact our college going students even brought in some more children in dire need, and the story went on. It still does.

The deepest satisfaction that we as trustees have got is when, with this little help, and their own determination and sheer grit and hard work, these children have now moved on to a better life.

While we have lost touch with some of them, and some are still studying, here are a few stories of those who have moved up.

A Swaroopa Rani

Swaroopa has been with the foundation since class 6. She went through two schools, intermediate and graduation, and she recently got a job with Cognizant. Her parents work as a watchman and maid close to our house. It is so nice to see her getting picked up and dropped by a cab everyday. What a shift.

She is my inspiration for writing this.

K Durgaprasad

DurgaPrasad approached us during his Intermediate, when he was being forced by family and circumstance to drop out of college. His father is a watchman and mother a dhobi. He went on to complete his graduation, and is now working as a teacher at Vashista Vidyalaya.

For a child who would be even scared to speak before us, he now also refers new children in similar need, who he comes across at his Church.

(For older children mom has always insisted that they write a request letter themselves, and I only later understood how meaningful and empowering a space that must be for them)

K Srikanth

Srikanth, started with us right from school and has now finished his graduation.

He is now working at WIPRO.

A Geethika

Geethika completed her graduation and is now working at PARAXEL as a financial assistant. Her father was a cycle mechanic.

When asked about her aspiration, she had said she would to be able to have a house with a door, and when she did that she actually came back and gave Smile Foundation a donation.

K Naresh

Naresh was the older of two brothers, a very soft spoken quiet kid. His brother dropped out of school and worked as a sales boy in a clothes store. His father expired when he was in his inter, and his mother worked as a school aayah. She was very keen that at least one of her children study.

He started with us in Intermediate and went on to do his B Tech. He just knew he wanted to work with computers. He now works at VOX Vallet Tech as a software developer. ( No picture again)

(I'm adding again: Naresh used to come and learn spoken english from me during weekends, and on one such day he told me that before his father died, he had said "You should keep madams (moms) photo along with your pooja at home, without her help your life would not have been like this")

T Chennakesavulu

Chennakesavulu, did his BCA. He then had to, very reluctantly, drop out of college to help his uncle who was a welder, as the uncle had an accident which had affected his hand and couldn't weld anymore. After a couple of years, he came back to us and completed his MCA.

He is now working with United Health Group (UHG) as a Java Developer. 

When I took out this picture, both Smitha and me said 'how young and cute he looks'. We've known him that many years. He still calls me or visits occasionally. 

A couple of the students, Geethika and Chennakesavulu have actually come back to even donate money to the foundation, making that amongst our most touching moments. 

Raising funds has been our biggest challenge. I take this opportunity to thank our donors: Pavani Mahadas, Yashoda Reddy, Ravindra Das. Praveen & Mala, Prasunna Reddy, Sirisha Kasturi, Samhitha, Sucharitha, Rakesh Gurbani, Surekha, Vishakha, Pavithra, Kiran, Annapurna, Sapta Sheel and all others who have supported the cause in any way they did. We could not have achieved all of this without your aid and support. Many thanks.

We have now scaled down, and for the past 3 years the foundation has a fixed income from a corpus created by my sister, Kamlesh and the expenditure is met from the interest accrued annually. We presently sponsor 6 students at school and 5 students in College."

Ma, I'm so glad you wrote this. Smile Foundation has become so much a part of life and our discussions, that taking a step back to look at individual stories is such a beautiful way to keep the inspiration and motivation going. And a special thanks and a hug, for taking it on single handedly for the years I left it all to you and went off to Bangalore. I know it wasn't easy.

Kamlesh aunty and ma, so glad to be a part of this beautiful and fulfilling journey with both of you.