India CSR News Network
NEW DELHI: On the occasion of International women’s day on March 8th, Janki Vasant, a well-known social activist and partner of Smile Foundation, received the prestigious Nari Shakti Puraskar, the highest award offered nationally to a woman in individual capacity for outstanding work done towards women upliftment.
Samvedana, the brainchild of Janki Vasant, is an NGO working for the betterment of slum children and women in Ahmedabad, Gujarat and associated with Smile Foundation in the capacity of social venture philanthropy partner.
Smile Foundation, believes in the ability of grassroots NGOs to bring real change in the community. The Social Venture Philanthropy (SVP) model is inspired and based on the successful business model of “Venture Capital” to the social and development sector. Under the Social Venture Philanthropy (SVP) model, Smile Foundation identifies handholds and builds capacities of genuine grassroots NGOs to achieve accountability, sustainability, scalability, leadership. Smile Foundation provides seed money for launch of new projects, expansion of old projects, and also emphasizes on regular counselling, better productivity, efficiency enhancement and capacity building of grassroots NGO’s, communication and process of Good Governance.
Smile Foundation is one of the very few development organizations in India that has been doing this exercise of handholding and building the capacities of genuine grassroots since its inception.
Janki Vasant, said “I feel extremely honoured to receive this award and for the recognition. I would like to express my feeling of gratitude to Smile Foundation for being the backbone of Samvedana and for changing hundreds and thousands of lives by supporting many small and genuine organizations like Samvedana. ”
“Heartiest congratulation to Janki Vasant for this recognition and humbled to witness the success of the SVP model that is enabling thousands of grassroots NGOS to be self-sustained and creating history.” Santanu Mishra, Co-Founder and Executive Trustee, Smile Foundation.
So, far Smile Foundation has built capacities for 500 NGOs under the social venture philanthropy model.