Our Story

Hope Initiative was started in 2004 when Dr Gour Choudhuri witnessed firsthand the need to serve school children. The original idea of Hope Initiative was to educate students about the healthy practices that one should follow. Dr. Choudhuri, former Professor and Head Department of Gastroenterology SGPGI, felt that if an awareness could be created about basic health practices among the school children, not only would it affect them by making a dent in the basic practices followed in their formative years but also help spread the message in the community at large.

So applying this philosophy of School to Community, Dr Choudhuri began working in Uttar Pradesh from November 2004. He was joined by few likeminded citizens, Justice DK Trivedi, Dr UC Ghoshal, Mr Kiron Chopra, Mr Elton D’Souza, Mrs Manju Tayal, Mrs Sandhya Singh and Mrs Surabhi Kapoor who were equally committed to carrying out various health education programmes in schools and colleges in the city, cutting across the social strata.

Hope Team 2017

Hope Initiative spent the first eight years working primarily in Uttar Pradesh serving school children by organising health classes, interactive quizzes and easy to understand books. What started from a class of few students in Lucknow soon spread out to more than 6000 schools touching lives of more than 3 million students and their families directly through programmes and events or by training and equipping teachers to become the “health promoters” of their institutions.

In 2014, Hope Initiative expanded its reach into capital of the country and the same program which had been so successfully run until now in state of Uttar Pradesh is now being followed in the National Capital Region with aid of schools, quizzes etc. Though the geographies have changed, Hope still continues to follow its basic fundamental mission to improve lives of students by helping create awareness, discover, share new information and adopt innovative strategies to promote health of students, their families and society.

In its fight to see a healthy India, Hope Initiative has been generously supported by Bristol-Myers-Squibb Foundation in all its endeavours.