Education and children

Gift A Smile

Supporting holistic education in India to over 84,000+ students in over 1200 schools spread across 22 states in the slum, tribal and rural belts where child labour and poverty are widespread.

  • Children and Youth
  • Education
  • International
Gift A Smile project

Project details

The work, the need and the impact

01

The Challenge

In many countries , children in low socio-economic areas face systemic barriers to schooling:

Urban Slums: Children here are often exposed to pervasive drugs, tobacco, and alcohol —substances that foster dangerous addictions, offering an escape from physical and mental abuse, where educational resources are scarce.

Remote Rural Villages: Children are frequently expected to engage in child labor or domestic duties, prioritizing family work over education, which is often not seen as essential.

Regions Affected by Violence: In isolated areas, children may grow up amidst violence and gang activity . They often lack basic infrastructure like roads or electricity and are deprived of formal education, tragically becoming more familiar with weapons than books.

This initiative is aimed at addressing these gaps to provide essential support.

02

Our Aim & Approach

We believe that every individual has the right to have their basic needs fulfilled such as food, shelter, clothing.

Children especially should be provided with everything they need to blossom, no matter what circumstances they are born into.

The “Gift a Smile” Campaign for Free Schools educates children from 3 years of age through primary and secondary school, providing:

Holistic Development – In addition to mainstream education we focus on building the characters of the students by providing value-based education. For complete mental development we include the teaching of yoga and meditation techniques.

Nutrition – We provide the students with wholesome, nutritious and good quality free meals.

Health Check-Up Camps – Regular health checkups, oral care education and personal hygiene education are taken care of.

Extra Curricular Activities – Such as dance, drama, sports, debates, literary competitions. Vocational training workshops such as computers, electrical repair, plumbing etc. Social awareness projects such as tree planting campaigns.

03

Our Impact

Today, through the “Gift a Smile” campaign, we have reached over 84,000 students and set up over 1200 free schools across 22 states of India. Many of these schools are in areas where there are no government schools. Most of the children are first generation learners. These schools successfully deliver a holistic curriculum that is a balance of modern education and ancient wisdom. The gender ratio at these schools is 48 Girls: 52 Boys which is a significantly higher female education rate than the national average. 90% of our students stay in school for the full duration against a national average of 37%. So far we have trained 1500 teachers.

04

How You Can Contribute

The smile on a child’s face is priceless. Would you like to gift a smile to our students? We are asking for donations to help us continue the great work we are doing through this initiative for free education. Your donation will help us to provide a free education to the most amount of students coming from underprivileged backgrounds. In turn, this will help to transform these overlooked communities into places of flourishing potential.

Support this project

Help Gift A Smile reach more people.

Donate, volunteer, fundraise or introduce us to a partner who can help this work grow.

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