About us

About Us

ASHA WELFARE SOCIETY (AWS) Asha welfare society is a fully charitable, secular, social, apolitical and registered Non- Government Organization (NGO) wherein all the services are provided free of charge. It is a registered society under society registration act 1980 section 21. Its registration number is LUC/02305//2019-20. It was founded in the year 2019, to deal with the problems of wondering mentally ill destitutes in India. We don’t treat patients brought by family members or whose antecedents are known through this society. Total number of patients reunited till date are thirty six and presently we have three patients at our institute.

OBJECTIVES OF AWS

To help maximum number of mentally ill roadside destitutes.

To offer free shelter, food and psychiatric treatment to the rescued destitutes.

To find the addresses of the destitutes and reunite them with their lost families in any part of India.

To network with other NGOs and Government Mental Hospitals in other parts of country to generate collective efforts for long term rehabilitation process for those destitutes whose immediate family is absent or not traceable.

STRUCTURE OF AWS Identification of patient:

We identify psychiatric illness among destitutes by their general appearances and behaviors. These patients often appear unkempt and untidy with dirty long hairs and beard. After identification of psychiatric signs and symptoms and ruling out physical illness we do all the legal formalities and admit the patient at our indoor center.

Medical treatment: Any covert signs or symptoms of physical illness are recognized by our experienced medical professions. We mostly find nutritional deficiencies, chronic ailments like tuberculosis and skin infections, which are treated appropriately.

Psychiatric treatment: As the patient first comes in the hospital his mental state is observed and depending upon his condition he is given adequate psychiatric treatment with appropriate medication. The treatment along with proper nutrition and psychological help enables recovery in these patients. We provide personalized hospital based care which involves individualized care plans delivered through empathic support and proper treatment.

Basic nursing facilities: At the campus hygiene of all the patients is maintained. Their hairs are made and nails are cut, taught to take regular bath and wear tidy clothes provided by AWS. Any physical injury is nursed and appropriate first aid is given. Our physician looks for any subtle signs of acute or chronic physical illness. For some cases we also get the required lab tests done and then appropriate treatment is given.

Psychological first aid: When patient feels safe in our hospital settings, they begin to get up at the right time, do regular exercises, participates in the indoor and outdoor games. We observe these activities in the patient and then begin his psychological healing. He is allowed to talk about his mental trauma leading to outflow of pent up emotions leading to catharsis. Most common psychological traumas are due to poverty, early maternal deprivation, addiction among parents and sexual boundary violations. Ventilating these emotional turmoil helps in improving mental health of these patients and then we try to reconnect them with their families. Patients address is confirmed with the local authorities like gram pradhan, local police stations. We usually circulate the picture of the patient at the appropriate address and once the identity is established our social workers reunite these patients with their families. A short term course of medicines is provided from our hospital along with the patient during their reunion.

Skill development: There have been instances where due to unavoidable circumstances we have not been able to connect some patients to their families leading to long term hospitalization. In these cases we have tried to identify skills of a person and based on these patterns try to make them productive, independent members of the society. We came across families who do not wish to take these patients back thinking them to be an extra burden on their pockets. If these patients after proper medication can be trained to earn their own livelihood they can turn out be earning members for their families rather than being a liability to them. We aim to provide a therapeutic community environment which is a collaborative ecosystem with user led initiative such as a café, salon, or a vegetable stall which will encourage the broader community to transact with the hospital.

Follow up Activities: Patient’s mental health is routinely checked by phone calls and family members are told about the need for constant and long term treatment. Patients are given address of local mental health government units where medicines are available. Our social workers while on their reunion trips, also help to spread awareness for mental illness and there appropriate treatments, disperse myths about the mental illness and try to break the stigma surrounding mental illness. Our follow up with our reunited patients also indicate if the reunited patients and their family have taken their medication seriously and have engaged them into voluntary labour, they have become indispensible part of their family.