Amanvedika Homes

Aman Nivas Shelter Homes:

Aman Vedika has 7 years of experience in identifying and persuading homeless people to come off the street and live in dignified shelters and take up dignified jobs. It has been running and maintaining 2 shelter homes and handling different categories of shelter less people for as many years.

Aman Nivas Shelter Home for Women:

As per Supreme Court directions and Government of India’s Scheme of shelters for Urban Homeless (SUH), Association for Rural and Urban Needy (ARUN) set up two shelter Homes for the Urban Homeless in the year 2010, one for Men and one for women, run in collaboration with the GHMC. Aman Vedika has been assisting ARUN in implementing this work.

Aman Vedika on behalf of ARUN and along with GHMC undertook a rapid field survey in May 2010 for identifying the shelter less people in the greater Hyderabad on the main roads of 18 municipal circles in which more than 4000 people were identified. Based on the results from the survey suitable locations were identified for setting up shelter homes.

Aman Nivas Shelter Home for Women is located in Namalgundu which was started in January 2011, Secunderabad and Aman Nivas for Men in Begumpet, Secunderabad since December 2010.

Women from varied backgrounds and marginalized sections end up being homeless due to many reasons especially domestic violence, abandonment, gender discrimination, cheating by spouse or known persons on false promises of marriage/jobs, suicides in the family due to huge debts, displacement of family during floods, droughts, single women or women with children. Most of the women are also denied any care and support by their parents, maternal or paternal relatives who consider men in the lives of women as threat to them or have unfounded perception of being cheated or exploitation. Hence these victims not having any space/shelter to stay, in turn further suffer and fall prey to violence, sexual abuse, exploitation on the streets.

Such homeless women, abused, deserted or sometimes pregnant due to sexual abuse or forced prostitution without any proper care, shelter and food are referred to our Shelter Home by Women and Child Welfare department, Police, civil society and organizations working for child and women rights. Our Social mobilizers too reach out to them and motivate them to come to our Home for shelter and safety.

Aman Nivas shelter home for able bodied women is a permanent shelter especially for the Homeless women and their dependent children. It is an open, non-custodial center where women come on their own accord and free will, without any force and stay in the shelter home for a period ranging from 1-6 months and sometimes beyond.

The premises where our shelter home is run has been allotted by the GHMC under MOU that is extended periodically and we manage the Home with the help of a team comprising project manager, 2 home managers and volunteer care givers.

The moment a homeless women comes to our shelter, she is given a Welcome kit consisting of a pair of clothes and toiletries. She is given meals and no questions are asked till she is ready to talk to the home team or other residents.

Provisions and facilities provided at the Home by Aman Vedika:

Special care is taken to provide protection, security and privacy to women who manage to come out of violence, abuse and distressed conditions.

Daily 3 meals are also being provided to the women at our shelter home by our organization due to regular support of donors and civil society. Special care and food is also given to pregnant and lactating women.

Since most of the women coming to the shelter are victims of domestic violence, sexual abuse and are emotionally disturbed at the events in their life, psycho social counseling is also made available to them with the help of professional counselors on regular basis so that they come out of distress, become stable to pick up their life and walk ahead with dignity.

Residents are encouraged to offer voluntary services for routine maintenance of shelter homes like cooking, cleaning and discipline to promote participation and sense of ownership.

Health and medical support is also provided to the residents by taking them to doctors, clinics and referral hospitals depending on the necessity. Pregnant women are taken care of, both pre- and post-delivery along with the new born. Women requiring treatment for any addictions are linked to de-addiction centers.

Once these women come out of stress, they either want to continue with the studies or are ready to take up jobs. Our organization guides them in continuing with their studies or vocational trainings to improve livelihood skills. Placement support is provided so that they become self-dependent and gain confidence and esteem. Dependent children of these women are linked to our Rainbow homes for children or are sent to residential schools for their education. Very recently we have also started a tailoring and sewing center at the women’s shelter home.

Many women either do not have educational certificates or any other ID proofs like AADHAR cards, Voter Id card, Ration card or Bank accounts. In some cases, even if they had, they would have been robbed on the street. Not having any proof of identification and address means not able to claim any welfare schemes. We help these women in getting these entitlements so that they can avail various social welfare/security schemes of the Governments like food, shelter and livelihood security

Till February 2017 we reached out to 2,600 women since our inception out of which 854 women have availed the shelter facility at Aman Nivas Shelter Home for women, 35 women have been helped to pursue further education, many women underwent various trainings, 4 women were sent for Nurse training, 94 women have been placed in various jobs, 4 at Super Markets, Bank accounts have been opened for 125 women to save their hard earned money and repay their debts, voter ID cards for 75 women, Aadhar cards for 71 women, Annapurna cards for 6 women, Birth certificates of 10 women, 60 children of the Homeless women have been sent to our Rainbow Homes where they are pursing education. Further, we helped 28 pregnant women till their delivery and took care of the new born, 205 women were provided legal support, medical support to 750, 55 Medical camps and special camps have been organized not only for the residents but also for the Homeless on the streets, over 20 basic needs awareness camps (clothes and basic toiletries are also given in these camps) have been held to create awareness amongst the Homeless to maintain hygiene, to access various shelter homes and also link them to Sulabh Toilet Complex.

On behalf of the homeless we take up advocacy with various government departments and Link up with various schemes like MEPMA, skill development, schemes for un-organized sector, and other government schemes and rights.

Women victims of violence, abuse in need of legal help and aid are given support by our friends from legal fraternity who whenever required give legal help and counseling.

Once these women settle down in jobs or daily work and start living with dignity, we make an effort to re-integrate them with their spouses, immediate families or in absence of families, they are encouraged to take up rented premises or opt for group living with other settled women residents for a dignified existence.

Last rites are performed so the homeless without any family can depart from this life with dignity.

Finally, we stand by our principle where we do not ask women, irrespective of any background or condition, to leave the shelter Home until she has become self-sufficient and is in a condition to take care of her-self and live with dignity.

Sakhi Centre, Mahbubnagar (One Stop Center, OSC):

The Women Development and Child Welfare Department (WD & CW), Government of Telangana in collaboration with Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Hyderabad has initiated Sakhi/One Stop Centers in the 9 erstwhile districts of Telangana. This is a Government of India Project that is being implemented across India aims at responding to all women/girls facing violence (sexual assault, domestic violence, harassment or any other distress) at one place, so that multi-pronged support ( medical, trauma, psychological, legal, counselling and economic) can be given to them.

The Sakhi centers are located in District Hospitals or close to Hospitals and provide 24/7 multipronged support like Medical, Counseling, legal, shelter, video conferencing, and rehabilitation services to survivors of violence. A team of 10-15 people (Centre administrator, counselors, case workers, Para-medical workers, legal counselors) are expected to work in these centers to provide
support to the survivors of violence 24/7. A Management Committee (MC) with the Collector as Chairperson has been entrusted with the responsibility of implementing the scheme. For smoother functioning of the centers, it was envisaged in the scheme that the collector will select the Supporting agencies/organizations and entrust day to day operations of the centers as per the prescribed norms.

On the basis of our initiatives on Gender Justice campaign, work on homeless community and shelter Homes, Aman Vedika has been selected to support the day to day operations of the OSC at Mahbubnagar District.