Millionaire dentist Seema Sharma is on Channel 4 next weekend in an Indian Winter edition of the TV series, The Secret Millionaire.
Next Sunday’s edition of the series – in which millionaire benefactors bid farewell to their luxury lifestyles and go undercover in deprived areas to find out who needs their help – sees Seema fly to the slums of Mumbai, the financial capital of India.
Channel 4 says: ‘With a string of successful dental practices to her name, Seema is worth in the region of five million pounds.’
The dentist, who recently launched a new NHS practice in London’s East End and lives in London with her cardiologist husband Sanjay and two daughters, swops her life in the capital with one volunteering in the Indian city’s slums.
She’s there to help a number of organisations in the hope of finding worthy causes and individuals to support.
Although Seema speaks basic Hindi, her only knowledge of India comes from Bollywood films and five-star holidays.
Mumbai has a shocking disparity between wealth and poverty: over half of its 13 million residents live in slums or on the streets.
Seema is staying in Dharavi, one of the largest slums in India, where more than one million people live crammed into less than one square mile.
During her stay, Seema meets inspiring people who’ve come up with ingenious solutions to help India’s poorest citizens, including a mobile school to educate homeless children, a charity that persuades the wealthy to donate toys to underprivileged children, and a group reaching out to a community of rag pickers struggling to provide their families with basics such as water and proper sanitation.
Trying to decide how to give away her money in a responsible and effective way, Seema is confronted by insurmountable dilemmas.
On the final day of her stay, Seema reveals her identity to the people she has chosen, surprising them with gifts worth tens of thousands of pounds.
The programme is on Sunday 17 January at 9pm and then repeated on Monday 18 January at 10.50pm, both on Channel 4.
