Projects » UDAYAN CARE
Udayan Care, along with many other NGOs, has campaigned and advocated for inclusion of the Mental Health Programme for Children in Institutional Care. This resulted in Rule 46, The Juvenile Justice Act - 2000, that is required for all the Institutional Homes for Children operate in India.
This rule states that 'children in institutional care have the right to mental health counseling. These children are all physically healthy, but many are negatively impacted by intellectual, physical or sensory challenges and hence, the need.'
All orphaned, abandoned, abused and runaway children who end up on the streets, all carry a baggage of emotional disturbance. Joy is missing from their emotional make up. They are not mentally challenged or mentally ill, in the traditional way of viewing these words, but they need an expert hand to help them shed the baggage.
The philosophy of Udayan Care takes this a step further, and the acronym is L.I.F.E - meaning Living in a Family Environment - is the best description. This distinguishes them from institutional type orphanages, and the children are considered as family members.
HOH's Goals
Udayan Ghars are key to the Udayan Care's Flagship Programme. This is where family situations are recreated to enable children to live in a family environment. Here, life-time committed volunteers, called mentor parents have been identified and trained. They bring stability into these children's lives by managing the homes under the 'Group Foster Care' model.
The Homes are located in regular, middle-class neighbourhoods, to create a residential environment for the children. They are taught in the best medium, or junior high schools, and the English language is key to their education. This environment gives them an advantage to becoming self-sustaining and responsible members of society.
Other goals of the Udayan Ghar Programme remain in promoting social, individual and legal initiatives to set up new homes in different parts of India for the purpose of being able to cater to rehabilitation and development needs of growing number of such children, and continuing to conduct the National Level Workshops to insure that the Child Protection Policy is embraced by all Institutional Care Programmes.
HOH's CONTRIBUTION
- Today, there are 12 Udayan Ghars that help more than 180 children
- Since 2000 when Udayan Ghars had no more than 3 homes, HOH has helped provide access to computer education for the young students
- HOH also partnered with Udayan Ghars in developing the Mental Health Programme at a time when people mistook 'mental health issues' as only mentally challenged or ill
- It is important to keep in mind that over the past 4 years, the number of homes and children we are working with, have almost tripled - right now HOH is looking after the Mental Health Programme at all locations, and complete funding is provided by HOH at 3 sites, with the help of its generous donors
