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Lifeskills Programme (Awareness, Counselling in
Schoold) 1995
Objectives: - Intensive promotion of education and behaviour change - to help young people to make all the right moves - to address issues with which they are currently struggling - to help them to acquire skills for a successful entry into confident and responsible adulthood. - to enrich their lives and significantly impact their decision making in the area of relationship, addiction. Sex and AIDS - to provide them with the skills they need to grow up to be alive, to enjoy a worthwhile and fulfilled life, free from the fear of AIDS, and ultimately liberated to live life without regret - When they have decided to decide right about relationship, sex, they are truly celebrating life. - to set standards, to empower them to choose, and many it will be an objective and reasoned choice because they will have been challenged before becoming sexually active. - to give our youth standards and set of sound guidelines which will equip them to face life with confidence, and to offer anything less is not good enough. Life is far more valuable to bargain with. - Young people are rewriting the scripts of their lives. Now, like no other during their lives, they are open to change and new direction. It is our aim to see that the direction they receive will equip them to script their lives.
We meet thousands of school children every year, giving them
awareness, counseling. V. Aids Awareness, Counselling and
Rehabilitaion March 1996. India was declared the country with the largest number of HIV infected people the joint report of UNAIDS, AIDSCAP and the Harvard School of Public Health declared that “evidence suggests an estimate of between 2 and 5 million” HIV infections in India at the moment. Clearly it was time for the Indian authorities to shake themselves out of their slumber. Couples with the fact that AIDS has no cure, that prevention was the only weapon we had to fight scourge, allowing the general population to believe that there was no real danger of AIDS in India would logically amount to abetting murder. When India had an estimated 5 million infected people, it was time to pull our head out of the sand and take a hard look at the problem. The south and west of India were the hardest hit. Bombay, the sin city, led in seropositivity. HIV infection among sex workers climbed from one percent in 1987 to 51 percent in 1993. Two to three percent people attending clinics for sexually transmitted diseases had the infection before 1990. This rate went up to 36 percent. We realized that the only way to check the dance of death was by stepping up awareness programmes and strict preventive intervention. Creating awareness among the general population especially among school children and youth was considered very important and urgent. Hence this initiative by SSS in 1996. Though the primary objective was AIDS Awareness to Children, Youth, Communities, after a short experience, our programme and strategy had five components. 1. HIV/AIDS Awareness 2. Prevention of HIV infection/transmission 3. Care of people with HIV/AIDS 4. Rehabilitation of HIV/AIDS affected children 5. Partnership in HIV/AIDS prevention and care 1. HIV/AIDS Awareness Programme conducted in School, Communities, Organisations, Institutions through Lectures, Audio Visuals, street Plays. 2. Prevention of HIV infection/transmission: Especially in a particular community where most of the women are into commercial sex with the consent of their husbands. We are concerned about the women and children. Our intervention is through Balwadi, Mahila Mandal, Saving Groups. Tailoring Classes, Regular Meetings, Exposure/Camp. 3. Care of people with HIV/AIDS: HIV/AIDS is one of the most serious health crises of modern times. It affects an increasing number of people all over the world. Women, men and children of all ages, irrespective of their education, social strata or religion have become infected. It is not only a health problem but also an economic, social, moral and spiritual problem of great magnitude. It has been difficult for almost all of us to initiate of develop a counseling ministry to those infected due variety of reasons. We were not well prepared to make a compassionate and relevant response to this crisis. We realized that we were called to be a HEALING COMMUNITY in the midst of pain and suffering, Whatever its nature or source We had a mandate to console, to reconcile, to love and to minister We believed that we are called to love and serve all particular situation in ways that empower the wounded to attain a better quality of life. We believed that we are called to assist those who suffer, to help people to cope with the possibility or reality of HIV infection, to support them as the diseases progressed, to integrate them into the wider community, to celebrate the life and death of persons with HIV, to deal with the moral and ethical questions, and to provide support and consolation to those who survive them. And hence this intiative. We provide counseling, referral, medication, psycho-social support, institutionalization and home – based care. VI. Rehabilitation of HIV affected
children: June 1998 The children of infected parents face many problems. Many infected parents leave behind their children as AIDS Orphans. They bear additional stigma of suspected infection. We reaffirm the rights of these children that they lead a life with diginity, receive emotional, social, psychological, physical and spiritual support and get all the opportunities to realize their God-given human potentials and thereby, like other children become productivity and responsible persons in the society. These children are given – i) Family based care: these children are kept in their respective families along with their surviving parents as long as their parents are able to take care of them. Education, for these children, is the fiest priority, inorder to make them independent after death of their parents. ii) Institutional care: The children, whose parents are unable to look after them, or whose parents are no more, are admitted in various hostels to pursue their studies. All their basic needs are met here. We help them to come out of the feeling of having a self image of being the children of HIV infected parents/AIDS Orphans/deprived and rejected by the society. VII. Rehabilitation of Spastic
Orphan Children – August 1999 PREETANJALI is the home for apostolic orphan children. It is the answer and our response to a request coming from many citizens of Pune. All the children of this home are affected by cerebral palsy. These throw-out, forgotten, abandoned and neglected (by their own parents) children have a home now. We realize that we have a responsibility to these children for their rehabilitation and integration in the mainstream of life and they, too, have a right to a meaningful life full of acceptance, care, concern and love. We have begun the process of restoring these children to their fullest possible normalcy, ability and usefulness. Our commitment to these children is a life-long one. This home managed by the Sisters of Sacred Heart. Vellore Their commitment to these children is highly praiseworthy. VIII. Rehabilitation of Commercial
Sex Workers and their children How we deal with the problem of prostitution will depend on how we look at a sex worker whether as a person deserving our sympathy and pity or irritation and disgust or empathy and concern Looking at the sheer number of human being involved, the problem of prostitution merits paramount consideration. It was felt that in an Organisation committed to the cause of human rights the Commercial Sex Workers, and especially the children of them, need to be assigned priority in the agenda of its welfare programmes. Hence this response to this problem by Sarva Sangh. A group of commercial sex workers visit SSS regularly now. They are happy to be at SSS, for they feel welcomed and accepted over there, they play games, discuss, laugh, dance… It is a place acceptance, renewal, hope and new life for them. SSS organises periodical get-together, celebrations, recreation, camps for sex workers and their children. Many of them have placed their children with SSS for studies and rehabilitation. Children of CSW: It may be emphasized that those most affected by this trade are the children of the sex workers since they are illegitimate. Born with the stigma of being Illegitimate’ majority of these children are shunned away by the society for no fault of theirs Society’s apathetic attitudes result in denying them the rightful opportunity to break free from the handicaps they are born with. They remain deprived of the basic opportunities and conducive environment and conditions necessary for the overall physical and psychological development of children. Early exposure to undesirable influence in the environment they grow makes them highly vulnerable. The girls become prostitutes at an early age, the boys take to pimping and other anti-social activities, sometimes even to drugs. These children live with their mothers in over-crowded room situated in ill-ventilated localities. Fear of police and society results in many psychological problems. These children witmess drunken brawls, see their mothers haggle with clients and competing with the one another to barter their favours. Redemption for the children We place them in hostels together with children from main stream of life and allowed to integrate with them. We want them to come up in life like normal individuals Establishing separate and exclusive homes for them will facilitate in stigmatising them. We provide normal school education to these children with services like counseling creative activities, medical care, vocational training etc… Prostitution is multi-demensional social problem. There is no single approach to solve this problem Concentrated efforts are needed to minimize the evil effects of this problem. An initiative has been taken by Sarva Seva Sangh. No.
Pogramme
Year 1. Community Development 1979 2. Rehabilitation of Addicts 1992 3. Rehabilitation of Street Children 1993 4. LIFESKILLS Programme 1995 5. HIV/AIDS Awareness, Counselling 1996 6. Rehabilitation of HIV-affected Children 1998 7. Rehabilitation of Spastic Children 1999 8. Rehabilitation of CSW and their Children 2000 Sarva Seva Sangh was a Community Development Centre from 1979 to 1990. Many programmes were added as and when the need was felt. It is now a Centre for Community Development Rehabilitation of Addicts Rehabilitation of Street Children Awareness, Counselling in Schools Rehabilitation of Spastic Orphan Children HIV/AIDS Awareness, Counselling, Rehabilitation Sarva Seva Sangh, where life is treated with love and transformed. We bring transformation where transformation by itself is not possible.
Director
Period Cletus Colaco till 1980 Vijay Amalraj 1980-1983 Cyprian Lewis 1983-1994 Lawrence Correa 1984-1987 Bernard Rodrigues 1987-1990 J. Felix 1990-1995 Mathew Nirappel 1996 (Courtesy:
Fr. J. Felix) | |||||
