Internship Opportunity at Anugraha India 2012

Anugraha India is a national NGO ( Not for Profit) , working for marginalized communities since year 2000. Its activities range from health care programmes in Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh to research studies in Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Assam. Anugraha has covered a wide spectrum of issues in the community development and age care. 

Anugraha India invites application from Domestic & International Interns , who wish to work in India.

We require assistance in following areas:

1. Survey & field work

2. Outreach & mobilisation of senior citizens

3. Report writing, documentation, designing IEC material on ageing

4.Overall pubilicty and resource mobilisation campaign

5. Other areas may be considered , if the interns write to us.

Requirement: 

• The interns should be min graduates, not necessarily in social work but MUST have genuine interest and commitment to work hard & make a difference during their stay with Anugraha.
• They will have to make own arrangements for stay, however we will try to offer any assistance if they apply to us atleast one month prior they intend to join.
• At present we have projects in Delhi, Faridabad (Haryana), Ambala(Haryana) & Dehradun.
• We shall reimburse expenses incurred on TA or any official work assigned by us, as per our guidelines.
• No stipend will be offered.
• A certificate of appreciation & a token memento will be given at the end of their internship.

Those interested may contact: Ms. Arti Panchal at  anugrahaindia@gmail.com and phone at 011-22234969/65651539.

Please note we shall study the application / CV and expression of interest and might have a telecon before finalising.

Know more about Anugraha:

Anugraha is a national NGO, working for marginalized communities since year 2000. Its activities range from health care programmes in Uttarakhand, Uttar Pradesh to research studies in Gujarat, Andhra Pradesh and Assam, Anugraha has covered a wide spectrum of issues in the community development and age care.

Provided medical screening, MMU, medicines to over 15000 patients, 6000 cataract surgeries through Multi speciality Medical camps.  Participation and presentation made in about two -dozen National and International forums. Signed MOU with Senior Citizens Council, Republic of Mauritius. Anugraha implemented extensive initiatives on Slum health care & Environment improvement programme, Bal Shiksha, Bal Arogya, Corporate Social Responsibility programs, AIDS Control & Awareness along with a Project on Development & Empowerment of Adolescents. It collaborated with Ministry of women & child development for Skill development, awareness generation and training of 1000 BPL backward class women in U.P.

As a collaborative partner with Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment, GOI, it has organised several National seminars, training programs & Consultations.  In 2008, Anugraha in collaboration with Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment, GoI.  organized a National Consultative Meet on “Safeguarding  Rights of the Elderly in India” in context of the “Maintenance and Welfare of parents & senior citizen Act 2007”, at Delhi for NGOs, Judicial & police officers, State Govt. officials, State Human Rights Commissions of different states.  Trainings on “Management of Dementia” were organized in Uttarakhand & Delhi for NGOs, medical colleges, academic insts., psychologists and care givers. Community Training in Computers for Senior Citizens organized in Delhi, Dehradun, Rajasthan, Punajb & Ahmedapad. Sensitization programmes on Promoting Micro Credit among Elderly in Uttarakhand. As a part of its “active ageing” campaign, it has been celebrating International Day for Older Persons in collaboration with NISD since 2004; organizing walkathons, award ceremonies, Workshop on Madrid Plan and Mega Cultural Events with Padma awardees in Delhi.

As member of State Council for older persons, Govt. of Delhi NCT, Anugraha formulated the “State Policy on older persons”. In its Day Care & Recreation Center, supported by Govt. of Delhi NCT Delhi, Anugraha is running e-learning and computer center, library, counselling, spiritual, social support & health programs for senior citizens. Anugraha is a zonal chairperson of Indian society for Universities of Third age (U3A) and has forged effective partnerships with Dept. of social welfare, Govt. of Delhi, Delhi Police, Academic institutions and sponsored by corporate bodies- SRS Society for seniors, Haryana & ONGC, NTPC, OIL, SCOPE etc.  An internationally renowned agency on age care it has worked with International Collaborators like UNFPA, UN information center, UNESCAP, FAO, Southern Cross Care, Australia & International Federation on Ageing, Canada. 

Anugraha is headed by a qualified social gerontologist, doctorate in ageing & technical expert. It has trained staff in social work, educationists and counselors who manages their Elderly day care center and other activities. Many retired persons are engaged with Anugraha as counselors, care givers, trainers and social workers.

Address:

Anugraha India , DR.AABHA CHAUDHARY - Founder Secretary

Head office :   B-33, Arya Nagar Apts.,91, I. P. Extension, Patparganj, Delhi – 110092,

Ph. 011-22726632

Field Office : Dehradun, Uttaranchal, Rae Bareli, U.P., Bharuch, Gujarat.

Website :  http://www.anugrahaindia.net/

Forget yourself for others, and others will never forget you.

Short Film Competition on Mental Health , WIN $1,000 cash prize

 

Winning filmmaker to receive $1,000 cash prize and have work featured in education and advocacy work around the country.

Open call to submit film projects, up to 5 minutes in length, of any genre, using mental health as the point of interest. Film topics may either be interpretive of mental health, or address it directly.

Art With Impact views the short film as an important art form and springboard for young talent. As such, we do not place any formal restrictions on submissions, and will consider all genres and types of short films, including submissions utilizing original footage, shared footage, photo stills, music, essays, screenplays, original art work and more.

All submissions are subject to Art With Impact's Mutual Respect Policies.

There is no fee for submissions.

Submission Guidelines

●     Submissions must be five minutes or less. Films longer than five (5) minutes will not be considered.

●     Submissions must be added to the Mental Health Short FIlm group on Vimeo and the URL for the video must be included in the Entry Form. Only submissions with complete entry forms (including Vimeo URL) will be considered.

●     Any participant may submit more than one project, and up to three. A separate Entry Form must be completed for each submission.

●     Submissions will be judged by a panel of guest filmmakers and Art With Impact board members. User comments / audience popularity may be taken into consideration in the final selection but will not determine the winner.

●     Jurors who are also filmmakers may submit work, but only during months in which they are not serving as a juror for the competition.

●     Past winners are required to wait at least one year before re-submitting to the competition.

●     Filmmaker agrees that all submitted films may be used by Art With Impact for educational and outreach activities and the winning film may be used by Art With Impact and affiliated organizations in any relevant programming in perpetuity.

Eric Roache : eric@artwithimpact.org
Art With Impact Connects Film With Action 

http://www.artwithimpact.org/awi/short-film-competition-mental-health 

 


 

Forget yourself for others, and others will never forget you.

Essential transparency in judicial and quasi-judicial institutions

I had made a commitment when I was made an Information Commissioner that I would ensure that I decided most of the cases before me in less than 3 months. By and large, I have been able to fulfill this promise and perhaps the average time for decisions must be around two months. Sometime in June 2011, a RTI application was received by my PIO, asking for the decision in a case registered in May, 2010. My staff could not locate the decision anywhere! I realized that the case had not been listed for hearing inadvertently, and no decision had been given. I realized that if a mistake had been made in one case, it could have been made in some others as well. A careful search of 2010 cases revealed another 110 cases which had been forgotten and missed completely! 
 

         We listed these for hearing and in one of them, there was a heart rending story. A Government employee had died in 1993 leaving his widow and young children. The widow was illiterate and poor. Since 1993 she had been struggling to get the pension she was entitled to. Since she was illiterate, she probably could not pursue the matter properly and each time there was a great delay, the system required many more proofs to establish her claim. By the time she barely managed to submit the required papers, it took years and office inefficiencies would not take decisions for some years! The lady appeared before me with her son who was an unskilled laborer, and both of them could not describe the exact sequence of events. The PIO however assured me that all the papers had been put in order and she would get her pension and all the dues soon. It will always haunt me for my life,- that despite running a reasonably efficient setup,- after her 17 year struggle, I was instrumental in delaying succor to her by a full year. 

          This set me thinking and I realized that there could be many such mistakes, which could result in untold suffering to Citizens who approach judicial and quasi-judicial bodies. In most cases there is no list which citizens can access which will tell them, whether their cases are in queue, and whether any logic is being applied in taking up the matters waiting in this queue. I feel upset when I see anyone jumping a queue at the airport, and in judicial and quasi-judicial bodies, the citizen cannot even see the queue. It is necessary that there is transparency in this matter, and citizens can see the queue and also feel assured that it is being dealt with in a transparent non-arbitrary manner. All judicial and quasi-judicial bodies should first ensure that this queue is very short and also give visibility to citizens in the way they take up the cases. 

         I took up the matter of listing pending cases in the Central Information Commission with the Chief Information Commissioner, who readily agreed. The ‘List of pending cases’ has been displayed on the website of the CIC at www.cic.gov.in and will be updated every month. In the Central Information Commission which is just six years old, this will lead to an opportunity for us to correct mistakes and also reassure citizens that there is fairness in taking up their cases. In most Commissions and judicial bodies, Citizens suspect arbitrariness and corruption in the listing of cases. The simple act of listing all pending cases publicly, will go a long way in restoring Citizens confidence in these Institutions, and also act as self- regulating check.

Shailesh Gandhi

Central Information Commissioner

The views expressed by me are my personal views and may  not represent the views of the Commission.

15 January 2012.

Email: shaileshgan@gmail.com

Forget yourself for others, and others will never forget you.

Bright minds and Dark Angels

Being a 5-pointer proves to be too much for these bright students and they fail to deal with the pressure.

Dad – sorry I couldn't be a better son to you… all you asked was my betterment of my career and future and I couldn't give it to you… I have failed you dad and I am so sorry about it. I cannot show my face to you

Mom – Sorry mom, I really did love you more than dad….

I was weak I thought I could become strong but I was weak, I was so so so weak the fault is my own. The fault is my own. Hope something good happens with my death. Firestallion has left the building…

I wish to donate my eyes and internal organs…. At least somebody can be benefitted with my death.

In another 2 min it will be 3:13 both my fav numbers. awesome time to die 

These were Nitin Kumar Reddy's last words in an email he sent to his father. The final-year M.Tech student at the Indian Institute of Technology Madras hanged himself from a ceiling fan in his hostel room after he got a semester extension.

Straight out of Raju Hirani's blockbuster 3 Idiots, Nitin aka Firestallion aka Swamy was on the verge of completing his final-year project, but could not meet the deadline. Unable to face the embarrassment of not graduating with his batch, he “left the building”.

'' I had told him not to worry; I would sort it out,'' says Nitin's father, Lakshmana Moorthy, who was to land in Chennai by the first flight the next morning. “I had left my office to attend a meeting. I got a call telling me that Nitin had sent a disturbing email. By the time my friend read out the email, he was gone.”

The pressure cooker description given by the media certainly does not go with the IIT Madras campus, located within a 620-acre natural forest with a magnificent lake and a wide range of flora and fauna.

However, in the last three years, the campus has witnessed six suicides—the highest number across IITs. This year eight IITians killed themselves across India, and IIT Madras leads this list, too, with two students, both from the mechanical engineering department, killing themselves.

In February, V. Anoop, 25, a final-year M.Tech student at IIT Madras, hanged himself in his hostel room, as he could not complete his course in time.

His father, Vijay Kumar, says Anoop had trouble with his guide, who “wasn't happy that Anoop did not consult him enough”. Anoop had requested a change, and it was granted. “His new guide had assured him that he would complete the project in time…. But we got a letter from the institute asking us to re-register. I got a call that midnight that he was gone,” he recalls.

And more recently, in September, B. Gowri Shankar, a second-year postgraduate student at IIT Madras was found dead in his room. It is suspected to be a case of suicide, though forensic experts are yet to confirm it.

According Nitin's friends, he had finished the major part of his project: simulation. “He had trouble fixing the engine,” they recall. “He asked his guide for help. He was told to approach the lab technicians, but they apparently were unable to help. Nitin tried fixing it himself, which did not happen. Finally on the day when he had to submit the thesis, the engine wasn't ready.”

And that meant Nitin had to repeat a semester. His plum placement plans bid him goodbye, and he bid goodbye to life.

Students who knew Nitin say he had initially faltered with his time-management. “His project guide should have noticed this and helped him fast-track his work,” says a student. “Indeed, many professors fail to pay enough attention to projects, as they are busy with researchers under them.”

While extensions pushed Anoop and Nitin to the extreme, the latest IITian to give up on life—Mehtab Ahmed, a first year student in IIT Kanpur—had been on campus just for a couple of months. The youngest in his family, Ahmed hanged himself from the ceiling fan in his hostel room on September 22.

The reasons being cited were many, including love affair and homesickness. The end result, however, was scrawled across the wall of his room in pencil: “I am tired of IIT-Kanpur.” This was the ninth suicide in IIT Kanpur in five years. 

Concerned about the spike in the number of students killing themselves, the IIT Council headed by Human Resource Development Minister Kapil Sibal has recommended setting up of a task force—consisting of teachers, parents and students—to study the issue.

Eight suicides across India in an annual combined batch of 10,000 might seem, as one professor in IIT Madras put it famously, “statistically unimportant''. But when the country's brightest students decide to end their lives, it does call for, if nothing, introspection.

Life@IIT

What makes these brilliant students crack? Boman Irani as the heartless professor may have been the chief reason for many students to give up in 3 Idiots, but in real life, it is much more complicated.

And it is not that IITs are like Nazi camps. Majority of the graduates say IIT was the best part of their lives. Even current students agree: “It is fun; the pressure is part of it,” says an IIT Madras B.Tech student. “We booze once in a while, we have ‘unofficial' inter-hostel competitions, and we have our own share of masti, besides plenty of sports and recreational facilities.”

Read in Detail: The Week | Bright minds and Dark Angels

Forget yourself for others, and others will never forget you.

Kolkata slumdwellers break down the walls that divide

It was business as usual in Panchanantala slum in South Kolkata that afternoon. Men were at work, some hawking fruit or sawing pieces of wood, others grabbing a siesta before returning to work. Women busied themselves washing utensils or clothes in front of their home while children shouted with laughter, disappearing through the maze of crowded lanes crisscrossing the rows of shanties. Teenage girls dressed in printed gowns went about their daily chores, barely casting a glance at strangers like us wading through the garbage and puddles of water, a little lost and unsure. The routine ordinariness in Panchanantala  concealed the fact that less than 34 hours ago, these very same people had sprung into action to create history of sorts: men, women and children had emerged from their shanties and rushed, spontaneously risking their own lives, to rescue patients trapped in a high-rise hospital building engulfed in poisonous smoke.     

December 9 dawned ominously upon the city with more than 90 people suffocating to death in a hi-tech hospital, the worst tragedy in a medical institution in the country. When in the wee hours of Friday, two women in the slum smelt smoke and were alerted by the screams for help from patients of the hospital overlooking the slum, they immediately raised an alarm. It was a little past 2 am, but within minutes young boys and middle-aged men from the slum rushed to the gates of the Advanced Medical Research Institute (AMRI), a well-known hospital in south Calcutta, to help rescue operations, only to be rudely turned away by the hospital security guards who bolted the gates to prevent their entry.  “We implored  the guards that there was a fire and patients were crying for help. They said they were taking care of the situation and demanded that we leave,” said Bappa Das, a class X student in the local school. 

Undeterred, the men cut through the barbed wire and made a hole with shovels in the 10-feet-high brick wall surrounding the hospital and separating it from the slum. Even as a blanket of thick smoke engulfed the annex of AMRI where serious patients in special care units and orthopaedic cases were housed, the men constructed crude bamboo ladders to climb the high walls and women made ropes of their saris and dupattas to aid the effort. Two hours later, at 4 am, the fire brigade arrived with manual ladders and no breathing apparatus. But even before the fire brigade and the police could get into the act of rescuing patients from the top floors of the hospital, the slumdwellers had scampered to the top floor on bamboo poles, water pipes and wooden ladders rushed from the slum, and braved the blinding smoke to drag out patients who were gasping for breath. In the din and chaos of darkness enveloped by the poisonous gas and screaming patients, groups of slumdwellers joined by the fire brigade, police and some hospital staff realised the worst-affected were the patients on the fourth floor, surrounded by monitors and drips and innumerable medical equipment. “We could see all around us the evidence of patients who had dragged themselves to the windows and shattered the glass panes in order to breathe and escape death, but had failed,” said Bappa.  

Many patients survived the trauma and were rushed to nearby hospitals, others were not so lucky. Among the dead were two young nurses from Kerala who made valiant efforts to save their patients while two young boys of Panchanantala’s rescue team are still battling for life in a city hospital.  Senior officials both from the police and fire departments have acknowledged the role played by the locals in saving the lives of many AMRI patients. “They were with us throughout the day, evacuating the patients and reaching the hospital gates long before us,” admitted a senior police officer of the local Lake thana.  “They were tremendous. Simply tremendous.”

It was the local slumdwellers, against whom the high walls of the hospital were built, who proved to be the saviours, the Good Samaritans, that fateful morning. Gurupada Mandal, a mason, was watching Vidya Balan gyrating in The Dirty Picture promos on TV when we met him on Saturday afternoon sitting on a bed that covered the matchbox-sized room. Hiding his annoyance at being disturbed, he did not understand why he should be interviewed for what he thought was an ordinary act. “My wife woke me up and urged me to go and help patients who were screaming for help. Without thinking I ran and called my neighbour. Together, we took a shovel to break a hole in the wall.  Since I am a mason I have bamboo poles and with some rope we tied them together and made a ladder to climb the hospital building,” said Mandal in a matter-of-fact tone.

Read in Detail: http://infochangeindia.org/disasters/related-changemaker/kolkata-slumdwellers-break-down-the-walls-that-divide.html

Forget yourself for others, and others will never forget you.