A Proud Moment for Smile With Shine: Founder Smt. Grace Mani Honoured with the Bharatiya Seva Ratna National Award

"I am truly honored and humbled to receive the Seva Ratna National Award today. This recognition is not just my achievement — it belongs to every person who has supported, encouraged, and stood with me throughout this journey of serving society." — Smt. Grace Mani, Founder, Smile With Shine Welfare Society

Some days are working days. Some days, somebody pauses and names what the working days were for. June 15, 2026 was one of those days for Smile With Shine Welfare Society. On that evening, our founder — Smt. Grace Mani — was honoured with the Bharatiya Seva Ratna National Award for her years of quiet, consistent, ground-level service to the people most often forgotten by the system. This blog is a small attempt to put that evening on the record — what the award is, what it recognises, and most importantly, who it actually belongs to.

The Moment

The Bharatiya Seva Ratna National Award is presented to individuals whose work in the social sector has consistently uplifted the underserved — the homeless, the elderly, orphans, the differently abled, widows, the visually impaired, and families surviving on the margins. It isn't a corporate honour. It is a national recognition of the long, unglamorous, every-day-of-the-week kind of work that doesn't make headlines but does change lives.

On June 15, 2026, Smt. Grace Mani stepped on stage in front of dignitaries, fellow social workers, and a hall full of people whose lives intersect with this work, and accepted the award on behalf of everyone who has helped Smile With Shine reach this point.

About Smt. Grace Mani — The Person Behind the Mission

Smt. Grace Mani is the founder of Smile With Shine Welfare Society, a Secunderabad-based NGO that today runs 12 interventions in telangana state. She did not start with a foundation, a corporate office or a fundraising team. She started the way most real social workers do — one neighbourhood, one Tuesday, one human being who needed someone to show up.

Today the organisation she built serves homeless individuals on Hyderabad's streets every week, supports widows and single mothers, runs Community Learning Centres for out-of-school children in slums and migrant colonies, distributes Educational Kits at the start of every academic year, and stands beside the elderly, the visually impaired, the differently abled and the transgender community across Telangana.

That entire range of work — quietly maintained for years — is what the Bharatiya Seva Ratna National Award has now formally recognised.

What the Bharatiya Seva Ratna Recognises

The phrase Bharatiya Seva Ratna literally translates to "Indian Jewel of Service". The word Seva — service — sits at the heart of it. The award is given to people whose lives have been organised around that word, not as a side-project or a CSR line item but as a primary occupation.

Specifically, the award honours sustained, consistent, dignified social work in areas like:

• Homeless welfare — meals, hygiene kits, warm clothing, restoration of dignity.
• Child welfare and education — school kits, doorstep learning, support for out-of-school children.
• Care for the elderly — companionship, medical support, visits to old-age homes.
• Support for widows and single mothers — livelihood, dignity, community.
• Disability inclusion — for the differently abled and the visually impaired.
• Support for the transgender community — in a country that still struggles to do so with respect.

Every one of those areas is part of Smile With Shine's regular work. The award didn't reward one project — it recognised the pattern.

On Stage — The Award Presentation

The award itself was a moment that did what awards are supposed to do: it stopped time briefly so that the people who do the work, and the people who fund it, and the people who benefit from it, all stood in the same hall at the same time. Smt. Grace Mani received the citation, the medal, and the shawl from the chief guests on stage, to an applause that came from a room that knew exactly what it was applauding.

A Felicitation in Telugu — Dr. Najeer Khan's Note

Among the many warm congratulations the founder received, a special note came from Dr. Najeer Khan, Editor of the Telugu daily Neti Samanyudu. He extended special congratulations and wished Smt. Grace Mani many more milestones in the field of social service. The original Telugu felicitation is reproduced below, followed by an English translation.

English translation

The Felicitation Continues — Supporters, Volunteers and Well-Wishers

The award is one moment. The work has been a decade. And the work has only ever been possible because of the people quietly behind it — the volunteers who show up before sunrise every Tuesday for the breakfast drive, the donors who fund a single Educational Kit or an entire month of a Community Learning Centre teacher's honorarium, the families who hand over warm clothes for hygiene kits, the local communities who let our team set up doorstep classrooms in a courtyard or a verandah.

That is exactly how Smt. Grace Mani herself framed the award in her own words on the day:

"My sincere gratitude to all my well-wishers, friends, supporters, donors, and volunteers who have continuously believed in our mission and contributed to our social service activities."

"Seve Paramo Dharmaha" — Service Is the Highest Dharma

Dr. Najeer Khan's message ended on a phrase that has anchored Smile With Shine since the beginning: "Seve Paramo Dharmaha". It comes from an old, well-known line of thought in Indian tradition — that of all the duties a human being can choose to live by, service to others is the highest.

The phrase carries a quiet expectation, not a celebration. It tells the person doing the work that there is no higher dharma to upgrade to once this one feels exhausting; it tells the people watching the work that there is no smaller dharma to settle for either. It is the bar — for the founder, for the volunteers, for the donors, and for everyone the work touches.

That phrase is the spiritual backbone of the award. It is also, more practically, the lens through which we read every Tuesday morning breakfast plate, every ₹30 snack at a CLC, every ₹650 Educational Kit and every ₹5,000 teacher honorarium on our Monthly Programmes page.

The Work the Award Honours — A Quick Tour

For new readers visiting this blog because of the award, here is a fast walk through the work that earned it. All of these are active — not historical — programmes; they happen every week of the year.

1. Tuesday Roadside Breakfast Drive — ₹100 / meal

Every Tuesday, we serve a warm meal and drinking water to homeless individuals, daily wage workers and roadside dwellers on the streets of Hyderabad. 100+ people served every week. 52 drives planned this year. Details on the Tuesday Breakfast Drives page.

2. Educational Kits for Underprivileged Children — ₹650 / child

At the start of every academic year, we hand over a complete school kit — school bag (₹300), notebooks (₹250), stationery (₹100) — to one underprivileged child. One full kit, one fresh start. Full breakdown on the Monthly Programmes page.

3. Community Learning Centres (CLCs) — ₹30 / snack, ₹5,000 / teacher

Doorstep classrooms set up in slums, tribal settlements, migrant colonies and remote villages — for children who are out of school, who have dropped out, or who are at risk of dropping out. Snacks at the start of each session keep small bodies focused. A paid teacher keeps the centre alive.

4. The Other Nine Interventions

Homeless welfare, HIV/AIDS support, leprosy care, visual impairment, disability inclusion, elderly care, widow support, transgender welfare, government school support, youth empowerment. The full list is on the Interventions page.

What Comes Next

An award is a comma in a long sentence, not a full stop. The week after the ceremony looks exactly like the week before it: a Tuesday breakfast drive on a Hyderabad pavement, a CLC session at 5:30 p.m. on someone's verandah, a school bag being checked for missing pencils before it goes out to a child. Same road. Same routine. Slightly larger reminder of why it matters.

For Smile With Shine, the practical impact of the award is this: a few more people will hear about the work, a few more donors will fund a Tuesday, a few more volunteers will show up before sunrise, a few more children will get their first proper school bag, a few more elderly will get a visit they weren't expecting. That is the only metric of an award like this that actually matters.

Be a Part of the Next Chapter

If this blog has reached you because of the award, the most useful thing you can do with the moment is to convert it into action. Below are the cleanest, smallest unit of impact we can offer — all published openly on the site:

How to give — UPI or bank

GPay / PhonePe to +91 73960 96830 or +91 70937 37459. Or visit the donate page for QR codes and bank details.

Tax benefit

"Contributions of ₹500 and above will get a receipt, where you can claim income tax returns." — Donate page

A Final Word from the Founder

Frequently Asked Questions

Explore More on Our Site

• All 12 Interventions
• Tuesday Breakfast Drives
• Monthly Programmes
• Homelessness Is a Circumstance, Not an Identity — A Note From the Streets
• Bringing School to the Doorstep: Inside Our Community Learning Centres
• Donate for Child Education in India: Where Your Money Actually Goes
• Photo Gallery
• Donate