Transforming Children’s Lives Through Purpose | Dr. Santhosh George G | TEDxChrist University
URL: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=htlgRmzE--8 Video ID: htlgRmzE--8 ============================================================ We can solve any problem. Friends on my right, shout this number 9131 931 >> and you 8002 8002. >> It was February 2008. My teacher sent me a mail asking me to meet this person who wants to start a national program. For the first time I heard the word cluboot and he said cluboot is a birth defect. 40,000 children are born with cluffoot in India every year. Since the reason is unknown, we cannot prevent but we can treat and we can treat without surgery. I said, "Oh my god, then we should do something." He also said, "It looks like children are not treated for club food." And I suggested if this is the case, you have to start a program and start this program with the government hospitals because we are talking about 40,000 children born with clafoot. I wished him luck and I left. After a week, he called me. He called me and said, "San Santosh, your idea is good, but I have a problem." And I asked him, "What problem?" He said, "I do not have anybody to start this program. Can you help me?" I said, "Okay, I'll join your team." And I contacted the former prime minister, Prime Minister of India's office because I heard that his daughter was born with Clafoot. They accepted my request, made a call to the chief minister's office in Delhi, got permission to start the program. That morning, the first training program 16th January 2009, I got a call from the doctor. He said there is a problem. I asked what problem? He said we expected 30 doctors to come but see we have 85 doctors we will have problem with the seating and we'll definitely have problem with the food. I said fine we will solve it. You take care of the extra chairs I'll take care of the extra food. Excellent training. More than 100 doctors were trained on this method to treat children without surgery. children with club food. The health minister inaugurated, he established seven designated weekly club food clinics in Delhi. All the premier institutions, Ames, Saba Jang, all the hospitals. One day I got a call from the coordinator. She said we have a problem. I asked what problem? She said see we planned for 200 children but you see in this all these big hospitals we already have more than thousand children we do not have special shoe is a special shoe the rod connected what shall we do we have to give this to children I said we can solve this problem we had two options one buy these special shoes from the US $300 $400 for each shoe or make these shoes in India. We requested the person who designed this invited him. He came to India, trained the first group of people, persons with the disability. We started making these braces in India. These days they make 200 braces every day. The program was going very well. Parents are happy, children are happy, health minister is happy, chief minister is happy. We came to know that the chief minister was also born with the clafoot. So she wanted this program to really do very well. We had to sign an agreement. I got a call from the health secretary and he said yes we would like to take it up but I came to know that you don't have an organization. So I told him sir give me a week I'll get back. Went back registered an organization cure India. When I went back to the secretary, there came the real problem. This officer was transferred. Went there again and again almost every day. There used to be a lady. She used to feel bad. Sir, you are coming every day. We are not able to help you. I said don't worry. We will definitely sign. We will win. We will solve this problem. But it took one year. May 2010, we signed agreement with the Delhi government. The government agreed to give us doctors, clinic space, treatment material and the system to identify and refer children with the cloud. And in response, Cure India said we will train the doctors. We'll make sure that these shoes are available. We will also appoint counselors to talk to the mothers and get them. We will document the entire process. Same year we signed agreement with the government of Karnataka. Same year we signed agreement with the government of Tamil Nadu established clinics. We were really getting excited because we really wanted to solve this problem of children not getting treated for kafur and in 2011 we expanded to four more states Bihar, Jarkand uh and Kland Maharashtra. The next year again seven more states we started expanding our clinics and children are getting then we realized we can solve the problem. Suddenly we thought why can't we solve one more problem children are not getting education complete education I see children running around because till ninth standard there is compulsory pass there is no exam by the time they come to n first time they write exam and they fail and they quit so I thought best is let me uh register an organization contacted the lawyer I said I have to register an organization and anyhow I have to go through all this process Why can't we register two organizations? He agreed. But then he called me. He said sir there is a problem. I asked what problem? He said register wants to know why you have to register at two organization. He feels it is so strange. I said okay I'll go and meet him. I met him explain to him children come back when they are two come back at 2:00 whereas parents come only at 6:00. Nobody's there to guide them. parents have never been to the formal education and these children are the first generation education. We want to help and we want to set up be educate uh empowerment center. He said okay but then what is this V plant? He said sir we want to address one more problem not one two nut malnutrition and hunger. He said what are you going to do? What is this V plant? I explained to him from 2011 what we have been doing. We have been planting fruit trees in public places in large number. He said are you sure? He thought maybe we are doing something wrong. I said no it works. Food is there in every village. Seven lakh villages in India. Food is there in every village. Nutrition is there but the problem is it is in the soil. From soil to stomach only trees can bring. So we really want to do this. He said okay fine go ahead. Till 2015 we were planting only saplings. You know the baby tree that we buy from the nursery. 2015 a huge storm came in Kerala called Oki. Many trees fell down. The trees that we planted. We felt very sad. Next year 2016 in Chennai again a huge storm. Verha if you remember again lot of trees fell down. Senior farmers looked at us and said you people are making mistake. We thought we are doing good. They are solving problem whereas they are telling you are making a mistake. I said what mistake? They said when you plant a baby tree remember it do not have taproot. When you put the seed in the plastic bag or a or a clay pot the taproot get twisted. If you really want these trees to survive and live the whole life what you have to do is put the seed in mother earth. Do not disturb. We thought it's a good idea. We went back. We thought okay how do we now get more seeds? We went to the schools, inspired the children. We asked the children, children, you all like fruits. They said yes. What do you do after eating mango? They said we throw. We said don't throw. There is life inside. Collect it next time. Save the seed. And then we also told them save the seed, sew the seed. They all agreed. And the Delhi government again gave us permission to do a pilot. We said okay this time let's do only 100 schools. And in when we went to schools we said okay so many children are there but we want only 100 children 100 students and when students came for a seminar we said this summer you collect only 100 seed so we launched this program called save a million mango seed save a million mango seed children were so excited and one morning I got a call from my coordinator B plan coordinator sir there's a problem I said what problem we can solve the problem he said I can't bring the seats I came by two wheeler so many seats in the school. I said how many? You take auto or you take a taxi. He said no 85 boxes. One school we expected only 10,000 because 100 students each student 100 seat said 90,000 seat. What will I do? I said don't worry we'll find a solution. School gave their school bus. We took the seed. This year the Delhi government gave us permission to establish seed bank in all the 5,000 schools. You know how many children are there? 50 lakh 5 million more than the population of New Zealand. Our dream is there are 2 million schools in India 20 lakh. Every school, every college will have seed bank in the next few years. Rajasthan has 1 lakh 3,000 schools 103,000 schools 50,000 villages for every village two schools are collecting se seeds save the seed sow the seed bij bachao bjuga every village will have nutrition forest in our lifetime we will end hunger and malnutrition we were so excited we established these organizations the cure India program was growing And by 2016 we signed agreement with all the states. All the states cloud children were getting treated. We felt confident we can solve this problem. 2013 we organized the first national cloud conference. The vice president came as chief guest. 2015 we organized the second national conference. The honorable health minister came. 2017 we organized the first global kluff conference participants came from 20 countries the kafoot India program became the world's largest klut program prime minister appreciated us the president of India came as chief guest and he inspired us and said we have to make sure that every child born with claw foot in India should be treated we said definitely yes after a I got a call from a very senior official and he said not problem. He said there's a complaint. I said what complaint? He said you come we'll talk. He said why your organization is taking care of only club food? There are children with other disabilities. I said no problem we'll take care. went back and registered this organization children in India to take care of children with cerebral pulsy autism down syndrome visual challenge hearing impaired we just recently started already has more than 20,000 children cluboot only 40,000 when it comes to all the other disabilities and birth defect development delay 40 lakh children every year but we said we'll definitely find a solution for this problem And 2020 we wanted to share this to children that we can solve any problem because when we see children volunteers our donors children we feel that they are always sad they're depressed for anything and everything they sit on the problem we tell them don't sit on the problem solve the problem and solve it joyfully and to teach this we established a program called health ashra not just for remaining poss positive but to make sure that you do not get lifestyle diseases. We tell children if you are sick you go to hospital you don't want to get sick come to health asham no need to even come to health asham make your home health asham your home should be a place you don't lose the health it should be a place where you flourish you live peacefully joyfully and chase your dream and every children have dream and in India unfortunately children don't know what to do with their creativity and dream we started patent school because we believe every problem should have a program and program should be an organization. Now that we know how to create an organization, we just do it well. One day I got a call from my B educate teacher. I thought she's going to tell sir there is a problem. She said sir everything is going well. Very good. Parents are happy, children are happy, children are getting good marks. Amazing. Another day I got a call from the cure India coordinator again because now I hear so much of problem I always thought that okay maybe they are telling some problem they said no everything is going well children are getting best treatment we have changed the way India treat children with the clafood I said so amazing she also said John Abraham has agreed to be the goodwill ambassador for our organization amazing I got a call from the vplan He said next plantation program we want to make sure that you are there. I asked why because Shikhar Davin is coming the cricket player he wants to join the children when we plant the seeds. I said amazing things are going very well and 15th August 2022 we were celebrating 75 years of Indian independence. We were just thinking amazing experience we've done excellent seven organizations they're doing very [clears throat] well. What can we do? We were just started thinking about the 100 years of Indian independence. 15th August 2047. For anything serious, what do we usually do? Imagine we have exam next year, next week. We start countdown. Okay, five more days to go. Seven more days to go. You know, we are preparing, we are serious about it. We thought why can't we do a countdown? By the time we celebrate 100 years of Indian independence, we should definitely have extraordinary progress. On that day, we sat there and we counted the days and you know the number of days between that 75 years of Indian independence and 100 years of Indian independence. You have the answer 91 31. Every day we do something. Just before coming I was just thinking um what I'm going to tell of course the success of cure today 33%age of children born with food in India go through the cure India program any government hospital any government medical college in India you go there is a cure India program 250 district early intervention centers you have the children India program we lost count how many seed banks we established How many nutrition forest we have built in villages? It's going and from today you know how many number of days before before we celebrate 100 years of Indian independence 8 02 days we can solve problems. Thank you. [applause]