Welcoming MiracleFeet India
“If you are a girl born in rural India, life is going to be very tough. If you are a girl born with clubfoot in rural India, you really have no hope. We need to change that.”
These are the powerful words of Kunal Premnarayen, a miraclefeet Board member. Kunal played a pivotal role in a recent, exciting development for our organization. We are now established as a stand-alone non-profit in India, under the name MiracleFeet India. Our goal is twofold–to raise funds to support treatment of clubfoot in India through our local partner Cure India, and to raise awareness about the condition so every family knows
that clubfoot can be treated.
In India, untreated clubfoot is a highly visible problem.
Many adults are left with no options other than to beg on the streets for a living. Everyone we speak to is exposed to the personal and societal effects of untreated clubfoot on a daily basis, so the issue especially resonates with donors.
Momentum is building!
Through our four-year partnership with Cure India, we currently fund 12 Indian state-wide programs that expect to enroll about 4,000 new children in treatment within the next 12 months. With a staggering 35,000-50,000 children born with clubfoot every year in India, we still have a long way to go toward reaching our shared goal – an India in which every child born with clubfoot is treated.
Kunal, who was born with clubfoot and treated non-surgically, went on to become a nationally-ranked tennis player. Thanks to him and his Mumbai-based team’s energy, passion, and commitment, the initial response to MiracleFeet India has been incredible. We have already secured $100K in pledges from major philanthropists and corporate donors. Our goal is to raise all the funding needed for India within the country itself. This great step toward achieving sustainability will also become a model that we can apply in other countries.
