PRABHA HIRA PRATISHTHAN
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Mission Statement
The mission of Palawi, Prabha Hira Pratishthan Trust, Empowering the vulnerable children, women and people affected by HIV/AIDS Vocational courses, Providing access to Education, Enabling income generation and to live life with dignity. To support and facilitate changes in society that enables the community to practice safer behavior's. The changes must be reflected at local levels. Strengthen and empower individual from excluded communities to understand their potential and act as an agent of change.
About This Cause
Palawi project under Prabha-Hira Pratisthan was established in 2001 at Pandharpur. It provides a Care Home for orphan children living with HIV. Palawi believes that all children have a fundamental rights to a loving, fun-filled childhood with access to health, education, and a safe and stigma free environment. Palawi has given a lifetime commitment to provide for their educational, nutritional, medical and recreational needs. We also aim at bringing awareness on HIV/AIDS and to sensitize the general population to the prevalence of HIV. In 2001, during such a awareness campaign about HIV/AIDS in nearby village Mrs Mangal Shah and Dimple ji came to know that two girl child were found abandoned in the cow shed. None of the villagers came forward to take care of the abandoned children. They were crying mercilessly and were in awfully bad condition with numerous wounds and small insects crawling on their bodies. They took the babies and rushed to a hospital immediately but as soon the government hospital came to know about the children being HIV positive, they refused to admit HIV positive children stating that the government hospital has no guidelines and isolation centre to sustain PLWHA for long. The Doctors had opinion that the children will not survive for long after looking at their physical condition, they were incredibly weak and had many infections. After being turned down by the hospital, they approached many other organisations, six to be precise. But they all refused to take care of HIV positive children. At this time in 2001, with all courage, compassion and love, the project Palawi, under Prabha Hira Pratisthan began its mission to provide shelter and care home for HIV/AIDS orphan children. IMPACT Since 2001, there has been a considerable growth in the admission of HIV positive children to our care home. In 2001 we started with 2 children, in 2005 we had 15 children admitted to the care home, the number increased to 69 between 2006-2010, during 2011-2015 the number increased to 88, there were 112 children in the year 2018, 2019-2020, there were 110 children at the project Palawi. At present we run a homely care-home for 125 HIV positive children. It’s been over 20 years for the organization to work in this field and to give immediate and undeviating services to HIV positive orphan. Palawi is committed to contain the spread of HIV/AIDS by emphasizing on awareness programs and targeting the vulnerable community. The central focus of our organization is to ensure rights, equality, and citizenship, Palawi has ensured access to treatment and care services for people living with HIV and orphan HIV positive children, mitigate stigma, and build agency among individuals from underserved and marginalized groups and their families who face multiple socio-economic challenges owing to their HIV positive status. Over a period of 20 years Palawi has developed various programs and innovated multiple ideas to target the most-at-risk populations. Creating awareness amongst different strata of population. And providing a residential care home services for orphan children and people living with HIV/AIDS. It has served as a signboard and a place to call home for HIV positive orphan children. VISION The vision of Palawi is to create a just and equitable society for the HIV positive women, orphan children and the HIV population in general. curbing the HIV epidemic necessitates broadening the scope of services beyond health, to encompass nutrition, psycho-social support, education, legal, livelihood and social protection by nurturing individuals from such socially and economically excluded communities as agents of change. The young adults of Palawi age 16-23 years have begun their work in social fields and are already an agent of change through their direct involvement in our newly launched project Palawi Parisparsh. MISSION The mission is to build bright and better environments that :- • To support and facilitate changes in the environment that enables the community to practice safer behaviors. These changes need to become policies and get implemented at state, district, and local levels. • Strengthen and empower individuals from excluded communities to understand their potential and act as agents of change. • Expand partnerships, networks, and linkages to catalyze a critical mass of such leaders. • Engage and influence governments, businesses, and other stakeholders to take this movement to scale. • Empower the children and women affected by HIV/AIDS through vocational courses, providing access to education, enabling income generation opportunities and to live life with dignity. Prabha Hira Pratisthan strictly follows all the guidelines provided by the government India for running a non- profit organization. The project Palawi under Prabha Hira Pratisthan is an organization in Maharashtra which is considered as one of the hard-hit states in India in terms of prevalence of HIV/AIDS. Palawi is only such institution in Maharashtra which has focused on providing solutions and system-change for people living with HIV/AIDS. It was founded in 2001 by Mrs Mangal Arun Shah and Mrs Dimple Ghadge as Secretary of the organisation. She takes care of each and every activity of the organisation. Dimple ji's role is unprecedented and her approach is practical and enterprising. According to the article published in The Times of India on April 16, 2019, Maharashtra topped in HIV-related deaths in 2018-19. The state has earned the dubious distinction of recording the highest number of HIV-related deaths (1,509) in the country in 2018-19. Palawi opened its arms to HIV-positive orphans to create a care-home in 2001. The care-home was founded on the belief that all children have a fundamental right to a loving, fun-filled childhood with access to health and education in safe and stigma free environment. Before coming to Palawi, each and every child had a very dark and gloomy past. After both parents have died from AIDS related illness, the child had to suffer at different levels by their distant or close relatives. Verbal and physical abuse, discrimination, stigma, lack or no food or clothes were part of their daily lives. Their minds had been scarred with stigma and discrimination attached to HIV/AIDS, even before knowing or understanding the meaning of the word "HIV-positive". These children at incredibly young age were treated in inhumane ways. Discrimination intertwined with their everyday routine. The sad truth is that these vulnerable and hapless children had no place to go or survive. Many of them were abandoned on railway station, bus stop or left all alone in a deserted place to die. Most of these children were found by local people or police and sent to Palawi. HIV positive children are most vulnerable and are marginalized, at the same time these children are as much an integral part of the society as we are. Palawi under Prabha Hira Pratishthan trust has so many remarkable and success stories to share. Very often people ask us why we care for such (HIV positive) orphan children who are going to die sooner or later. Our answer is a BIG NO! to such regressive thinking. Each child deserves to be happy, safe, healthy, and educated and so does the children of Palawi. We believe in empowering each child in our care home. But how do you empower a person? Well, one of the ways is to be generous in giving praise and encouragement instead of criticism. Empowering the child in a discrimination and stigma free environment. Giving our children confidence to stand tall. By praising and encouraging the child, we help them to accomplish what they are meant to be, and that would lead to more value being added to the society. Before coming to Palawi, 90o/o of the children were either school dropout or was not able to attend the school at all because of their health conditions. AIDS orphan usually lack parental care or financial resources for education and well-being. Most of the children in our care home come from low income or poor socio-economic status. But now, all the children above 5 years are getting a formal education in our very own educational unit of Prabha Hira Pratishthan, Gyanmandir. We have established our own Educational Unit at Palawi because getting a formal education for HIV Positive kids at any formal school was strenuous due to social stigma attached to it. In 2007 Palawi started ‘Vishwa Kalyan Vijayji Gyanmandir, school follows Maharashtra Board curriculum. By 2013 the Educational Unit was developed from Class 1st-10th. We have a flourishing school with 7 teachers and 5 non-teaching staff. Our institution aims to provide all the contemporary modern educational designs to our children. The impact of HIV/AIDS related death or illness of parents has tremendous negative effect on children’s education and health. At the local level it is a huge change to see HIV positive orphan children not only going to school and receiving a formal education but also scoring excellent marks in their classes. When we see our young boys and girls earning their own livelihood by making informed decisions about their work and their life, it gives us immense pleasure. At Palawi Vocational Training Programme is introduced to enhance the livelihood opportunities of HIV positive women and elder children. The Vocational Training Programs aims to develop entrepreneurial skill among them. The objective is to create a workforce empowered with improved skills and knowledge in order to gain access to decent employment and become self-sustained. Each child at Palawi is encouraged since very young age to be skilled in their area of interest. They are advocated and guided to become an agent of change and, just to our expectation, the adult residents of Palawi have been helping in other social projects of Prabha Hira Pratishthan. They are understanding the true meaning of "giving back to society".