Jhankar is a website which would be launched very soon through which people suffering from disability arising out of mental illness can exhibit & sell the products made by them.

The sellers here are people with disability arising out of mental illness. Society shun them & make them live as a burden on others, making their whole life dark without any hope for future .We provide opportunity, environment for these people to make their life & the life of the buyer fill with colours of joy & happiness. This helps to transform their role from a burden to the society to a creator, producer of beautiful outputs that they are capable of doing inspite of their illness & this also helps them to come out of their illness

They fabricate new designs & make junk/ costume jeweleries,fabric and hand made embroidery works.
According to World Health Report around 450 million people are suffering from mental or behavioral disorder in India. Only small minorities of them receive even the most basic treatment.The biggest challenge in today’s society is growing mental illness & marginalization of the affected individual.The unemployment rate of persons with serious mental illness range from 70-90%. Access to meaningful, paid work is a basic human right for every citizen & since getting employment is often difficult transforming these people in to entrepreneurs may reduce this burning challenge.

Problem

According to World Health Report around 450 million people are suffering from mental or behavioral disorder in India. In India there are 42 mental hospitals in the country with the bed availability of 20,893 in Government sector. These facilities have to manage and estimated 1,02,70,165 of peoples with sever mental illness and 5,12,51,625 of people with common mental disorders needing immediate attention (Janardhan and Biotype Deka Report).We need to focus on reducing the frequent relapses that happens so often due to lack of opportunities for meaningful engagement & employment as it would reduce the burden on hospitals For people living with mental illness, work can be a critical factor that helps promote health, recovery, and social inclusion. Yet, 60-80 percent of people who live with mental illness are unemployed and, for people living with the most severe mental illnesses, unemployment rates can be as high as 90 percent.(NAMI) MI people throughout the world face direct or indirect stigma & lack of opportunities for them. For this reason we have started an entrepreneurship project involving people with disability to exhibit & sell their products through a website. It would be a platform to earn money for people from all over the world suffering from disability due to mental illness.

Solution

Organising employment opportunities to these groups of people often become a problem. For this we are promoting a website which would initiate people suffering from MI to transform in to entrepreneurs & sell & exhibit all their creative products through it. Any people suffering from MI from anywhere in the world can exhibit & sale his product through this website. This becomes a window to the outside world for them as well as a means to exhibit their creativities, get appreciation & a path to earn their own livelihood. Invisible impactful services-Recovery of the affected member is needed & for that we are creating a working community where professionals, volunteers and MI people are working to support the reentry of these members in to the society We have started entrepreneurship project which provides an opportunity to produce costume jeweleries, fabric, embroidery works & we provide opportunity to sell them to earn their livelihood through our website, networking with different retailers available in the country. Visible products We are developing a special website where people from all over the world would get a glimpse of the products made by them & buy their products. The change in the life of these people after their product is sold could provide satisfaction to the buyer apart from the satisfaction that they get from the products only. This initiative is innovative as we are transforming a non-productive member of the society to a productive member again.

Example

Recovery of the affected member is needed & for that we are creating a working community where professionals, volunteers and members are working to support the reentry (mainstreaming) of these members in to the society. It creates a place in the society where the various participants can congregate on a daily basis in a productive social endeavor–the social integration of its membership through mutual support and employment. The working community model is a replication of a model in healthcare from Fountain House, New York, that features a strengths-base, empowering and collaborative social innovation in support of people suffering the social and personal isolation that results from mental illness. The model has been recognized in the United States as an evidence-based practice which has been faithfully replicated in over three hundred clubhouses throughout the globe . It has been seen that the devastating experience of isolation, both social and personal, that accompanies severe mental illness can be overcome by creating a working community in Kolkata. Organizing a working community involves establishing a place where various task groups that function either to meet the social needs of the membership (i.e. employment, housing, medical care) or that maintain the functioning of the community (i.e. food, communications, paying the bills). All work in the community is done with professionals and members working side-by-side; assignments are collectively determined in daily group meetings according to the desire of the member & his ability in that particular time frame. Partnerships are formed with family and friends, businesses and others organizations in the community that support the values and the social functioning of a working community.( http://www.fountainhouse.org/content/news/fountain-house-nationally-recognized-evidence-based

Marketplace

Leading retailers in India- So far we have established connection with Shoppers Stop & Spencer’s & expect to make new connections very soon All the beauty parlors World wide Club House group NAMI worldwide & NAMI India ISPS (International) NHS Marketing through Social sites Marketing through corporate by organising exhibitions Marketing through Book stores Marketing through website of Jhankar www.jhankarindia.com