Helping Hands Foundation, believes that all people privileged & underprivileged are rightful citizen of this nation and are entitled to a full spectrum of human rights. The main objective of HHF is to enable people around to take responsibility for the situations of the deprived individuals & children’s and motivate them to realize their full potential. Helping Hands Foundation believes that the right approach is the only one that works. This requires us all to think of the underprivileged people not as an object of sympathy, but equal citizens with the same rights as consider our due. We must try and realise that everyday choices that we make must seek to address the root cause of their problems and not just the superficial manifestations.
The main objective is to enable people to take responsibility for the situations of the deprived individuals & children’s. The Challenge is to motivate children’s and deprived individuals to realise their full potential through individual or collective efforts of this foundation. Our mission is to create a happy, healthy and creative society of people whose rights are protected and honored on the basis of dignity, justice and equality for all.
The team which works for this Foundation consists of professionals from different walks of life and arecurrently lead by the founder, Intikhab Chougle – a professional corporate executive with almost 17 years of experience and a writer by passion. Social work has always been something that excited him and his firm belief of ‘what you have got from the society should be given back to the society’. Though he has been doing social work informally for last many years it is only in recent time he decided to do it formally under the banner of ‘Helping Hands Foundation’.
The first step taken by this team was to get associated with an institute of repute ‘The Bombay Institution for Deaf & Mutes’ for launching their efforts. This institute was established in 1885 to impart education to student with hearing disability (deaf) from any caste, creed and community. It is the oldest of its kind institute in Asia and they have classes from LKG to Std. X in 3 different mediums of education i.e. Marathi, Hindi & English. The primary aim of the institution is to develop the ability of the students to read & write the common language of the society, they live in. They are also trained in process of communication through signs & languages. Apart from formal education, the institute also provides vocational training on book-binding, screen printing, computer skills, type writing, home-science etc.
Helping Hands Foundation today through this institute officially launches their program ‘Betiyaan’ under which the trust has taken the responsibility of sponsoring all the Girl Child’s administration fees to the Institute and will also monitor the needs / progress of these kids through their team. The NGO pledges its support to the Institute and will try to ensure that all future academical needs of these kids will be fulfilled through this program. Betiyaan as program is a ‘thought to empower the girl children of our society with education and ability to face the world’ and the reason to do it from this institute is because the challenged children are even more special and their inability also possess an issue of being accepted in the society of the normal people.
The special guests who have stood by us on the first step of our program include names which are renowned in their own rights and are existing Social Service personalities:
Mrs. Farida Lambay: Farida Lambay does not need any introduction when it comes to Social Work, highlights of her extensive career have been her post as Vice Principal of College of Social Work (Nirmala Niketan) & Co-Founder & Trustee of Pratham, an NGO established in the Mumbai in 1994. Through Pratham Farida Lambay became a crusader for education and also led the battle against child labor – first in Maharashtra, later it became a national movement. She has also initiated the projects Prerana (working for the rights of prostitutes) and YUVA (Youth for Voluntary Action, an organization working on social issues with youths). She has been a member of state and national committees including the SSA(SarvaShikshaAbhiyan), Sachar Committee and the Maharashtra State Security Council, and has participated in national and international conferences. Her efforts have been acknowledged through numerous awards, most recently the Ahilyabai Holkar Award, presented by the Maharashtra Government. Mrs. Farida Lambay is more than just an educationist and a social work professional; she represents honor, compassion, dedication and above all humility that make her the institution that she is today.
Pooja Sakpal Rao: Pooja Sakpal Rao is a young & dynamic activist who is associated with an NGO which is mainly into protection of cruelty to animals. She has been working for this cause for a long time and has successfully created a niche on the Social front for herself.
Dr. Manzer Sahibole (Gynecologist): A renowned & a hardworking gynecologist who has aspirations to work for people in the field of medicine. She plans to someday have a ‘fertility center’ of her own and work to help the people who are currently deprived of bearing children, some day she plans to be of help to many such people and make the treatment easily accessible for the not so rich people of our city.
The special guests had some encouraging words to say for the initiatives and efforts taken by Helping Hands Foundation, which is committed to deliver far more than expected from the team, this being the first step towards its long term agenda. The NGO plans to extend their program ‘betiyaan’ to more institutes and also to needy individuals across the city and in various geographies. This first step as defined by the Managing Trustee – Intikhab Chougle is aligned to the thought process of the team, ‘if you feed a meal to an individual, he will ask for another meal. But if you train the individual to become independent using his strengths then he will not only become independent himself but will also be a source of inspiration for many others to become independent as well’.
This initiative is well received by the parents and the institute and requires ongoing support in days to come from other individuals around. As the team at ‘helping hands foundation’ believes ‘Together – We can & We should’ and hence we extend ourselves to all to be a part of our initiatives in the days to come and help the team progress to bring in the change someday that we all want to see around us.
‘All Journeys of Life begin when the First step is taken towards the defined destination’, ‘betiyaan’ is the first step taken by helping hands foundation to bring in the change that the team desires to see in our Society.
( for more details Please contact : helpinghandsfoundation1974@gmail.com www.helpinghandsfoundation.in)
