New Delhi :The Delhi government’s Department of Social Welfare headed by Rajendra Pal Gautam recently launched the ‘Integrated Program for the Rehablitaion of Beggars in Delhi’ with the objective of making the city begging free, it was announced on Friday.
The program aims to impart professional skills to these people so that they can find gainful employment and become a part of the mainstream society.
Department of Social Welfare is executing this program in collaboration with NGOs that are working in this field.
Aashray Adhikar Abhiyan (AAA), a leading NGO that works for rescue and rehabilitation of the homeless is partnering the state government in this program.
AAA has been allocated the Ashray Griha (rehablitation center) at Katra Maula Bux, Roshanara Road, the NGO currently houses 25 people involved in begging and it is providing them training in trades such as wall painting, mobile repairing, gardening, catering, carpentry etc. Besides this the NGO also works to train these people in soft skills so that they are able to communicate more effectively and reintegrate more easily with society.
These training modules are for a period of three months per batch.
Dr Sanjay Kumar, co-Director of Aashray Adhikar Abhiyan, said “this is a trail blazing program and a big challenge for us, as per the last census (2011) there are about 6 lakh people engaged in begging in the country and there is hardly any intervention to deal with this. This is a perfect opportunity for those involved in begging to leave this practice and become a part of mainstream society. Most of these people who are able bodied and in the working age would give it up only if they had a choice. We are partnering the Delhi government to provide this choice to these people in form of skills.”
He points out that among the homeless only a small percentage of people are engaged in begging and addiction seems to have a direct relation with begging. “Among the homeless very few indulge in begging – those who go into extreme poverty i.e. destitution start begging. Those who are addicts are more likely to indulge in begging. People who are victims of natural disasters, aged, the physically and mentally challenged too are more likely to take to begging.”
Dr Sanjay explains how this intervention would go beyond just providing professional skills to these people “Once these people are associated with us, we would collect their details and start the process of making their Aadhar cards, voter ID cards, and once this documentation work is done we would open their bank accounts, through their documentation they are able to avail the government schemes as well.”
- Latest
