Sponsor skill development via journalism and photography

Impact

Shruti is a student of Andheri (W) English Medium School. She is also a **second year student at the Salaam Bombay Media Academy.** Her father is an Electrician and her mother, a housemaid. Shruti grew up in Hyderabad, speaking Telegu. **When she moved to Mumbai with her parents, she couldn't speak, write or understand Hindi. This made it difficult for her to make friends,** perform in class or take part in any group activities. This made Shruti a loner and she had no one except her mother for company.**The Media Academy focused on her written and spoken language skills** while exposing her to photography, photojournalism etc. by planning visits for her to the printing press, and other places. Her grit and determination resulted in her picking up the language quite fast. Her efforts showed in her academics and she was awarded as the Best Student of the Year, last year. With the help of Salaam Bombay Media Academy, she worked on her skills and today, she is an avid Photographer. Her pictures do the talking and convey what she could not for a long time.**Your donation can help children like Shruti look forward in life. **You can donate with confidence because every program on our platform is [GIVEASSURED](https://www.giveindia.org/giveassured).**

About The Program

Salaam Bombay Foundation believes that children grow as their horizons grow. Started in 2002, their objective is to empower children to overcome the obstacles of the environment they live in. Salaam Bombay, seeks to increase their self-esteem, build their self-confidence, develop their vocational life-skills through arts, sports and media to create positive role models. Children can make the right choices if they are given access to the right information and the life skill tools to deal with adverse situations. SBT also wants to safeguard the next generation from tobacco. For which, they conduct awareness and advocacy programs on tobacco. The Media Academy is an in-school three-year comprehensive training program, which initiates children into Journalism, communication and Photography. The Media Academy provides children with an alternate skill that further enhances their career opportunities. The objectives of the academy are:To train children in Journalism, communication and other forms of mediaTo provide children with an alternate skill to enhance their career opportunitiesTo develop life skills such as reading, writing, effective communication, team building, personality development, confidence and creative thinking, amongst othersSBF works in 12 schools and 375 students. The students are recruited for the first year of the academy through a writing and oral test followed by one on one interview. Around 20 students per school are selected from each school for this training. These selected students are given a three-year training in the academy completely free of cost. They are motivated to express their inner self. The training is imparted as per a pre-designed module and curriculum set for the purpose, along with various exposure visits including visits to electronic media houses, radio stations. They are helped with guest lectures, participation in special courses held across Mumbai, etc. The module is imparted by trained Salaam Bombay facilitators. The Media Academy provides experiential learning in the form of a newsletter, Voice of Halla Bol, written and edited by the children, for the children.

About The NGO

Salaam Bombay Foundation (SBF) was founded in 2002 with the philosophy and belief that the only way to invest in the nation's future is to invest in its children and in their health and education. Children also need to be guarded from risks to their health, especially tobacco which has a high prevalence in children and youth. SBF is focused on engaging Mumbai's most vulnerable "at risk" children through in-school programmes (leadership and advocacy) and after-school academies (skill building) that help build their confidence, self-esteem and commit them to stay in school while staying tobacco-free. Salaam Bombay's vocational development academies help children to contribute to fluctuating family incomes and encourage their families to continue their education while planning for a stable future. Their programmes started from 230 schools in Mumbai and grew to over 15,000 schools in Maharashtra alone training over 60,000 teachers. They have now sown seeds in 5 states across India.Padmini Sekhsaria has a B.A in Economics from Sophia College, Mumbai and MSc. in Financial Economics from the University of London, U.K. She is an alumnus of the London School of Economics and London Business School. Padmini Sekhsaria has been active in health programs, particularly cancer and tobacco control for over two decades. She is the vision behind Salaam Bombay Foundation that she founded in 2002, working with more than 2.9 million children across Maharashtra alone making it the largest preventive program in tobacco control in India.