Bhubaneswar: State based private entity launched a rehabilitation program for the mentally ill homeless men at Gangapada. ‘Mission Ashalok’ aims to take such men off the streets and provide them with a place to stay with facilities like proper meals, psychiatric help, counselors, skill training and market linkage.
The organisation behind the mission is People’s Forum. The organisation operates a similar program for mentally ill women called ‘Mission Ashra’. It has claimed to serve more than 3,000 mentally ill women since 2003.
Social activist and Mission Director Gobinda Pattanaik stressed on how crimes by mentally ill men are on the rise in the state.
‘Our effort is to give them a life of dignity and treatment so that they do not get aggressive or become miscreants. We plan to cover every district and hope to integrate the men we take in, back in the society. The mental health crisis is real. There are only 20 psychiatrists for 2 lakh people who need help with mental problems in the state. The facility at SCB Medical College accommodates just around 150 people which is not enough,” says Pattanaik.
The inauguration ceremony was also attended by Minister of Empowerment of Persons with Disabilities and Jatni MLA Suresh Kumar Routray. Minister Ashok Chandra Panda lauded the initiative and re-iterated the Chief Minister’s aim to ‘reach out to the unreachables’.
