300+ Smiles in a Small Town Called Bansalan
Where it began to grow — the day Nizi Bhandari created smiles with more than 300 beautiful children.
The story
A small town, an enormous heart
Bansalan is the kind of place the world tends to drive past — a quiet town tucked into the hills of Davao del Sur, where help arrives rarely, if at all. On this one day, it became the centre of the whole world. More than 300 children gathered, eyes wide, as the Iva and Shiv Foundation pulled up with boxes of school supplies and a promise these kids don't often hear: you matter, and somebody came just for you.
You have to understand what that means to a child who has spent their whole life being overlooked. To be chosen. To be handed something brand new that is theirs to keep. Some of them just stared at the bag. Some hugged it. A few cried — and so did a few of the grown-ups watching.
It was one of the foundation's very first big drives, and it set the tone for everything since: supplies in every child's hands, music in the air, and the unmistakable sound of a forgotten community realising it had been remembered after all.
Every smile that morning was a message sent home to Shiv and Iva — this is how we share your light with the world.
