A ray of hope

NGO Sayodhya provides livelihood assistance to women recovering from mental illnesses

t took around two years for Sushmita who has depression, to turn her life around and sustain herself. In a room near the female ward of the Government Hospital for Mental Care at Erragadda in Hyderabad, she is joined by her friends Pratima and Jagruti. The three women, supervised by a volunteer, sit comfortably on a stool in front of a leafmaking machine with four dyes (blocks). The trio heatpress an unevenly shaped vistaraku (adda leaf; botanical name Bauhinia vahlii) and a cardboard square under the dye to make a sturdy, circular ecofriendly leaf plate. The women make plates of different sizes for different purposes: tiffin (eight inches), dinner (12 inches), and also without cardboard. After making 25 plates of each variety, they laminate them and segregate the waste. These 25 plates are later sold at ₹88 (tiffin), ₹138 (dinner) and ₹113 (nonsturdy big plates). “People book over the phone and come to collect them from the hospital,” informs volunteer Gujjaralamudi Jyothi.

“It is an easy process, we learnt how to make leaf plates in a day,” says Sushmita. While seven women

Ihave been trained, these three women became skilled.

This initiative by NGO Sayodhya holds out hope for these women as it provides them an avenue for livelihood assistance. Launched on August 4, this skillbased initiative is a tripartite agreement — project funded by TMEPMA (Telangana Mission for Eradication of Poverty in Municipal Areas) as part of its poverty alleviation programme, implemented by Sayodhya at the Government Hospital for Mental Care in Erragadda. It is an attempt to rehabilitate the women who have recovered from mental illnesses as certified by a doctor, informs Sayodhya founder Vemulapaati Mrudula, who runs a halfway home at Amberpet. Sayodhya supports and provides shelter to women who have recovered but have not gone back to their families. “According to the law, when people are cured of their mental illness in a hospital, they have to be handed over to their families; their release orders have to come from the court to the police station. However, some women have to overstay due to various reasons — their addresses are being traced but in some cases, the families do not take them back. We give these women basic literacy, communication and numerical skills, and art therapy, and teach them

Helpline

People can call NGO Sayodhya’s helpline 1800 599 1811 to book orders or call the number if they find a mentally ill woman homeless

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