Page 74 - HUDCO BEST PRACTICE AWARDS

Housing, urban Poverty & infrastructure

Colony No. 5 encroachments in Sector 50 and Sector 51 School at Dhanas

Vocational Training Centre at Dhanas Transport Facility at Dhanas Police Post at Dhanas

Year 2014-15

SErVicES for urBAn Poor – VocAtionAL trAining HEALtH fAciLitiES

by ishwar Sankalpa, Kolkata

swar Sankalpa (IS) a non-profit organization started in 2007, is a multi-pronged service • Homeless women with mental illness are the most vulnerable and are subjected to
Idelivery organization providing intervention for both the homeless and urban home- sexual abuse and as a result, these women became vulnerable to forced pregnancy,
based poor population in Kolkata. In 2010, IS took up an outreach programme for the HIV/ AIDS. Almost 90% of the women who are rescued have some kind of physical
homeless people with psychosocial disability. Projects like Shelter Programme for such injury or major physical ailments.
urban homeless, restoration programme, vocational training programme, and emergency • Mentally ill people, who are homeless are prone to drug addiction as their mental
response unit for street based emergency cases of the homeless & mentally ill people, day illness and lack of insight isolates them from humanitarian services of any sort.
care centres for homeless people with psychosocial disability and Urban Mental Health • Due to deplorable inadequacy of services available for the homeless people with
Programme for slum population were part of this outreach initiative.
mental illness, these people remain outside the boundary of health care and are lost
In 2007-2008, a baseline survey conducted by IS to find out the population of homeless/ forever. The majority of the patients, both men and women, rescued belong to the age
mentally ill, in the 141 Kolkata Municipal Corporation wards of Kolkata. This revealed that group of 18 to 35. They lack even the basic privacy and hygiene care while living a life
an alarming number of persons were in dire need for support and care. The survey revealed: of utter neglect.

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