Healing Through Entertainment

Cinema for a Cause: Raising money for medical intervention

One of the ways in which we raise funds is to screen films, using the money we get from ticket sales to sponsor major medical interventions like heart surgeries and cancer treatment. We have screened 15 films to date, raising an average of Rs. 20,000/- per screening.

Entertainment and fundraising combined

We screen the films at the South Indian Film Chamber Theatre, Anna Salai, charging Rs. 100/- per ticket. We have many well-wishers, such as software executives and bank personnel, who come to lend us their support and be entertained.

In the interval, we invite the guest of honour (the film’s director or producer, where possible) to present our team with a cheque in favour of a chosen hospital, to the value of the amount raised.

Abundant goodwill from the community

In addition to the entry fee, we also receive further goodwill contributions at most screenings. An example is the film Mozhi, where we collected Rs. 8000/- as extra donations (aside from ticket sales) in a collection box kept at the venue.

Other entertainment programmes

Lifting weary spirits is an important part of our work, and so we entertain the sick and terminally ill with song and dance at least once every 3 months. Examples include patients from the TB hospital in Tambaram Sanitorium, and the Cancer Institute, Adyar.

In fact, we renovated and converted the TB hospital’s open-air theatre into a modern, closed auditorium at a cost of Rs.5,00,000/-, for just this purpose.