Smiles of India
During the years 2008–10, Science Fair specialist and educator, Leslie Moses Moe, traveled to India accompanying and leading her educational objectives mission team. The purpose was to assist the Christian school located in the village of Mori Podu, in the Andhra Pradesh region of India near the Godavari River under the Blue Mountains flowing to the Bay of Bengal.
This region requested assistance in initiating the process of Science Fair education for more than 450 children, many of whom were orphans, who were being housed and educated by the Riverside Mission School. The school was originally started by a wonderful visionary, Subamma.
(See the Subamma Story.)
Restoring Medical and Dental Care
In addition to successfully initiating the area's first Science Fair, Leslie was shown the Subamma Hospital facility, which had fallen into disrepair due to reluctance of doctors and clinicians to treat the area's population, known to be predominantly of the caste formerly known as the "Untouchable Caste," now called the Dalit.
Leslie brought the children's plight of having a scarcity of medical and dental care to the attention of the grandson of Subamma, now in charge of the mission school and hospital village, Professor Solomon Darwin.
A Partnership to Bring Medical Care to the Community
Dr. Darwin's teaching and consultation profession is based at the University of California at Berkeley. Following a site visit by Dr. and Mrs. Moses to Mori Podu for facial deformities-afflicted patient screening and examination, treatment-plan preparations, and facility and equipment needs assessments, an agreement was cemented between the two groups, Project India and Smiles International Foundation.
Rotarian Dr. Sanjay, Prof. Dr. J. Moses, Mrs. Maribel Moses, and Dr. Arun Noah at the first on-site screening and evaluation mission, December 2009.
Clean Water for the Children of Mori Podu
An additional concern was providing clean water for the children of the village and protecting their health against water-borne diseases such as dysentery, typhoid, and the like. This became important to Dr. Moses upon seeing the children's exposure to contaminated shallow-well water taken from the Godavari River Delta.
View Godavari River Delta
The concern was further heightened by the tsunami effects on the Delta water systems.
A Commitment to Clean Water
Therefore, SIF has taken steps to begin the installation of a water purification system, most likely to be obtained through the excellent engineering philanthropy of Water Mission International.