Smile Foundation's ‘Action for Children’ - a step for child welfare

PRLog (Press Release) - Jun 03, 2008 -
HOW COULD a country, which is home to 10 per cent of all the billionaires of the world (53 out of world’s 500 billionaires); a country, which is one among the only four trillion dollar economies of the world, have the highest number of underprivileged children of the world? An honest search for an answer to this question would reveal that this could happen only when the privileged masses of a country are oblivious to the plight of its underprivileged. The sad reality is that this is the story of our own India.


If all the ‘fortunate’ Indians come out of their indifferences and apathies towards their ‘not-so-fortunate’ countrymen and decide to bail them out of their difficulties, India could become one of the most prosperous and powerful countries of the world.


‘Action for Children’ (AFC) is an interesting initiative of the Smile Foundation, which is directed to stimulate ‘fortunate’ Indians to ‘stand up and act’ to transform the lives of underprivileged children and contribute to nation building in the process.


The programme is based on the premise that development is a people’s issue and not just the government’s concern. It aims to sensitise people through advocacy on child related issues. The initiative seeks to involve them in mobilising resources for grassroot initiatives, targetted to bring about a qualitative change in the lives of underprivileged children. And encourages the privileged to stand up and ‘act’ to make a difference in the lives of the disadvantaged.


The programme permeates from the context that:


The situation of children in India leaves much to be desired;
Fund raising in India needs to be broad-based;
Public support for the cause of children and its socialisation is required to be strengthened.


In line with this emerging scenario, the ‘Action for Children’ programme aims at encouraging various civil society groups like rotary, lions clubs, trade, industry and professional associations, schools, colleges, youth clubs/youth wings, corporate employees etc, including community organisations, to get involved in child development initiatives.


This will not only involve local people in relevant development initiatives, but also ensure that development activities become locally sustainable and not dependent on external support alone.


A programme like this, is the need of the hour to bring about a qualitative change in the lives of millions of underprivileged children in our country.