[1]A group of students of institute of Road & Transport Technology, Erode, visited an old age home and found that the home needed money to shift their premises.
The students organised a grand charity show to raise funds and when it turned out to be a big success, they shifted focus to students’ welfare by organising various events and supporting underprivileged students pay their college fees.
The same group, after they passed out from college, started Smile Welfare Foundation in 2004. “When we started the foundation, there were around 40 people and slowly our friends at office joined us. We’re working on four different projects to lay a positive foundation in the field of education for underprivileged kids,” said Mr Gunasekaran, a founder-member.
The foundation started project ‘Punnagai Palam’ to help students of government Annai Sathya home, Waltax road, and government Kosapet home by conducting tuition classes.
“We have a number of volunteers from the IT field who help us a lot by taking classes. I get immense satisfaction when I visit the home and interact with the students. Though students lack confidence, when you motivate them, they understand and work hard to accomplish their goals. Volunteers like me led a much more normal life in childhood. But I still remember how I suffered to get a college application form due to lack of money. I help these kids so that they can come up in life,” said volunteer Tamilvanan.
The foundation helps students pursue their higher education by paying their fees and taking care of other expenses. Nirmala, one of the beneficiaries of Smile Foundation, said, “I was in a government home and the volunteers used to visit us, teach and motivate us. I completed B.Sc. Physics and now I’ve started volunteering in the foundation.
The credit goes to the foundation for helping and supporting girls like me pursue higher education,” said Nirmala.
Smile Foundation can be contacted on 9566385314.
Links:
[1] http://103.241.136.51/angelsjpgcropdisplayjpg-572