Alternative Realities - Restoring Dignity of Homeless Youth - Changing the face of Cities
This entry has been selected as a finalist in the
Young Men at Risk: Transforming the Power of a Generation competition.
Address the needs of the homeless Youth through a comprehensive, Multi sector approach, including coalition building, awareness-raising, journey towards self-development and creative advocacy campaign
About You
Location
Project Street Address
Project City
Project Province/State
Project Postal/Zip Code
Project Country
Your idea
Year the initative began (yyyy)
2003
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Plot your innovation within the mosaic of solutions
Which of these barriers is the primary focus of your work?
Young men’s missing voices and input leads to disconnection and failed policies
Which of the principles is the primary focus of your work?
Unleash creativity that channels experiences of risk and vulnerability toward leadership
If you believe some other barrier or principle should be included in the mosaic, please describe it and how it would affect the positioning of your initiative in the mosaic:
This field has not been completed
Name Your Project
Alternative Realities - Restoring Dignity of Homeless Youth - Changing the face of Cities
Describe Your Idea
Address the needs of the homeless Youth through a comprehensive, Multi sector approach, including coalition building, awareness-raising, journey towards self-development and creative advocacy campaign
Innovation
Describe your program or new idea in one sentence.
Address the needs of the homeless Youth through a comprehensive, Multi sector approach, including coalition building, awareness-raising, journey towards self-development and creative advocacy campaign
What makes your initiative uniquely positioned to create change in your community?
During my initial days, when I used to visit places where homeless citizens live, one homeless friend shared “Who would like to live a life of unknown and wretchedness? Simply because we cannot pay the rent of houses in Mumbai and we have no other option, every dream seems out of way for us. We just want to feel like any other human beings, like you, but alas our compulsion has pushed us in this state and we are compelled to be like this because of our homeless tag.”
It touched something inside me and was a turning point of my life. I realized my purpose and rest followed. I alwasy believe in them.
A key to my approach is building coalitions among diverse sectors – NGOs, municipal authorities, law enforcement, hospitals, churches, and academic institutions – to address the issue. Forming geographic and functional Cultural Groups of homeless youths, who feel and present their issues to people at large is central to my work.
Describe how you organize and carry out your work?
I am working at three levels. One is to create a cohesive and active groups of homeless citizens at locations where they live, two, create awareness among the public about the magnitude of the homeless issue and three, try & get the state organizations to formulate policies in favor of the homeless.
Using diverse methodologies such as street theater, documentaries, print & electronic media, studies, survey and research, I try to bridge the wide gap between mainstream society and invisible homeless citizens.
What is your plan to scale and expand your innovation into your community and beyond?
Since its founding in 2003, my organization has reached out to more than 50,000 homeless citizens. I have ambitious plans for future, including an education and vocational-training initiatives for homeless Youth and construction of a transti sheter which will house up to 50,000 homeless citizens over the next five years. The model of my organization will cover 10 major cities of India in the next five years, reaching out to more than estimated 300,000 homeless youth. Next year owards Cultural groups of homeless youth will be enacting street plays across the country to rasie awareness and build unity among homeless citizens.
My Night-Out activity that encourages larger population to meet homeless citizens and stimulate social interactions will help increasing number of citizens from mainstream society to positively get connected with homeless issue. Village-Journey (Rural-Yatra) activity will connect internatioal and national city population with Indian multi-cultural villages and youth migration related issues, which will give visiblity to the issues of homeless youth and create a support base.
What other resources, institutional, or policy needs would be necessary to help sustain and scale up your idea?
It is disheartening to see hard working homeless youth sleep on dusty pavement under the dark sky in night, dulled by air pollution with the surroundings of deafening noises of the vehicles and harsh street lights. There is an urgent need for shelter with sanitation facilities, where these citizens can have their share of peaceful sleep after daytime exhausting labor. I am negotiating with state as well as private institutions for opening up their infrastructure and help homeless youth get a dignified life. School buildings are unutilized during night time and it can be used effectively.
There is an urgent requirement for communication devices, like mobile sets and computers that will help homeless youth get connected with the market and will also increase their income capacity. The activity is called Labour-Hub.
There is a need to repeal old state policy on homeless, which labels then as criminals and formulate new policy including shelter and livelihood policy to capitalize on creativity and potentials of homeless youth.
Impact
Describe your impact in one sentence, commenting on both the individual and community levels.
Invisible homeless issue has got wide spread visibility and state acknowledgement. Also unorganized homeless youth has got organized in groups and created creative platforms.
What impact has your work achieved to date?
Constant exchanges with the homeless people, in the form of meetings, street plays, night-outs, workshops, etc., facilitated the formation of a geographical homeless groups at locations where they sleep.
Identity cards from my organization have been issued to homeless youths, which has helped them to maintain individual identity and get a dignified visible existence.
Constant interactions and sensitization worshop with police authorities has helped in bringing down the police atrocities among homeless youth in Mumbai.
More than 300 street plays have been enacted by homeless youth across the city and has created active support groups. The cultural group of homeless youth also provides consultancy to other organizations and earn revenue out of it.
A vibrant and active network of various organizations and volunteers are consistently take part in activities with homeless youth groups.
There is an active support of print and electronic media for the issue of homeless.
Hard work and creativity of Homeless youth have been acknowledged at various state level forums.
Number of individuals served
My work is mostly through my initiative "Alternative Realities", which is directly and indirectly reaching out to 100,000 homeless citizens. Directly through our activities like Night-out, Rural-Yatra, Educational initiatives and so on we are reaching out to 50,000 homeless citizens.
5 geographical groups of homeless youth have been formed at 5 locations, each groups has 20-25 youth members. These are cultural groups and have been active in writing, directing and enacting street plays across the city. We provide support of blankets and medicines to more than 25,000 homeless citizens in the period of one year.
We reached out to more than 10,000 homeless youth, who were labelled as anti-social elements and police put them in jail becase they were sleeping on footpath. We have sensitized more than 100,000 city population on the issue of homeless in the last one year. Also created a city level alliance of 20-25 organizations to support homeless youth. I have identified and trained more than 50 homeless youth leaders till date.
Community impact
My efforts have brought about positive behavioural changes among homeless Youth. Initiallly there were feeling of worthlessness and sense of despair among homeless youth community. My activities and interventions have helped them get united. With the help of various self-development activities and life-skill education, I started tapping on their positive energy and creativity. As a result homeless youth have catapulted into stonger personalities, full of hopes and ideas to move ahead and accept challenges in life. Homeless youth have got trained in doing creative advocacy on their issues and have been building support groups through it. There are individual identity and a feeling of Indian citizenship among homeless youth. As a result of vocational training homeless youth are aiming towards better career options and also creating options. Wide spread interaction between mainstream society and homeless citizens have made homeless youthmore confident. Homeless citizens have started accessing health care facilities and a dignified existence. The fear of mainstream society has turned into feeling of friendship.
Society at large
Homeless youth work at all low end jobs and form an integral part of city economy, but always been treated as social outcaste by mainstream society. My efforts have been instrumental in giving visiblity to the hard work and creativity of homeless youth, which has resulted is bridging the gap between mainstream society and homeless youth. As a result the vulnerability of homeless youth has got addressed to a large extent and help eveybody realize the feeling of togetherness and social interdependence.
What measure do you use to gauge your impact and why?
I use several measures including number of geographical and funcitonal groups of homeless youth. It shows the feasibility of tapping positive energy and facilitating unity among most diverse & mirginalized section. Another measurement is widespread participation of mainstream society in my activities, which is impartant to bridge the gap between two and help homeless youth feel dignified. Percentage increase in teh social and economic capacity of homeless youth is next measure, which shows progresive positive impact of my initiative in their lives.
This Entry is about (Issues)
Sustainability
How is your initiative currently being financed and how would you finance further expansion and/or replication?
Whenever I require any monetary support, I along with volunteers make power point presentations, documentaryshows for Rotary Club, Lions Club and so on. So far I have been successful in mobilizing modest financial support of some of my activities. My activities are majorly supported by monetary contributions of individual members of my organization, who are from across the country.
Subsequent to several media articles, many corporate executives have become the member of my organization and started supporting the issue. Several organizations, institutions, and other NGOs have been providing infrastructure and volunteer support.
My new initiatives like Village-Journey, Labour-Hub, remodelled Night-out and so on are self sustainable. These activities require only initial seed money. Homeless youth members are also putting in theri contribution to support many activities.
Provide information on your current finances and organization:
I have been able to raise INR 500,000 till date. Largest funders are individual members of my organization. I have also got modest monetary support from Rotary Club of Mumbai. Main source of revenue is consultancy given by cultural homeless youth groups to other organizations and institutions. Also we provide trainings on personality-development and street-theater to other insitutions, which fetch us second largest revenue for the organization. I also organize talks and lectures on urban poverty issues, which is the third largest source of revenue for us.
The activities of organization is implemented with the help of 25 full-time comitted homeless youth members, who are the fellows of my organization. There are more than 35 volunteers who keep supporting the activities of my organization.
Who are your potential partners and allies?
Support group of NGOs, academicians, the general public, corporations, government officials, media persons and the like has been created to advocate on behalf of homeless citizens. Common Interest Groups of college and school students are constantly providing volunteers for activities like street plays, organizing meetings, resource mobilization and so on. Eelctronic and print media has been alwasy a great support. I am also the member of various naitonal and international movements. Now the efforts are on to build an international support group.
Who are your potential investors?
The larget investors are citizens from mainstream society. Once they see and realize the mutual interdependence between homeless citizens and city economy, they turn out to be the largest supporter. I have been successful in a limited way with this investor group but efforts are on to make it more successful. Second largest investors are homeless citizens themselves and this is their way of claining ownership. Third largest investors are clubs, banks, institutions, funding agencies who support youth development & entreprenurial activities.
The Story
What is the origin of this innovation? Tell us your story.
After graduation I declined to abide by my parent's choice for my carrer and left home. Economizing on the modust income I could gather, I started sleeping in open near religious places in Delhi and also continued with my education. After 4 years of rigorous struggle I got admission in a very prestigious Tata Institute of Social Sciences, Mumbai. In Mumbai I used to venture out in night to understand the city. There I witnessed hundreds of homeless population wandering in search of livelihood, in various places of Mumbai. Youth eking out in difficulty, without proper food for days with lost hopes and shattered dreams…homeless being victims of police atrocities, women taking refuge of sex work to meet their mere basic needs, old citizens languishing in the streets in search of security, children succumbing to juvenile delinquency.....this sight of extreme misery and predicament dawned on me as I saw this as the Reality of “Independent” India.
Yes! I was taken aback…. but continued to harbor optimistic vision and firmly believed that this reality could be changed and vulnerbale homeless Youth, who resided at the lowest rung of marginalization, could be empowered to change their lives so that they would enjoy dignified life and would be able to eschew the callous attitude of society. This was possible only if they could unite, could realize their potential, exert and exercise their creativity and believed in own selves. Hence the phrase “United we stand, divided we fall” became a guiding principle for me.
Please provide a personal bio. Note this may be used in Changemakers marketing material.
I am born and brought up in a small village. The disadvantaged village ambience instilled in me great personal ambitions. I graduated from St. Xavier’s College where I studied Economics. On my life-journey Indelible images of poor in urban areas, searching for means of survival on the street made me realize their vulnerability. After graduation, I joined development sector. Parents were not supportive and I supported myself on own. I joined Tata Institute of Social Sciences and subsequently initiated work with homeless.
 | 219 weeks agoAlternative Realities - Restoring Dignity of Homeless Youth - Changing the face of Cities has been chosen as a winner in Young Men at Risk: Transforming the Power of a Generation. |
| 221 weeks agoAlternative Realities - Restoring Dignity of Homeless Youth - Changing the face of Cities has been chosen as a finalist in Young Men at Risk: Transforming the Power of a Generation. |
| 230 weeks ago(Jacky) Eng-Leong Foo said: bharadwajabhi response to Changemakers Q: What other resources, institutional, or policy needs would be necessary to help sustain and ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 230 weeks ago(Jacky) Eng-Leong Foo said: bharadwajabhi reponse to the changemakers question Q: What is your plan to scale and expand your innovation into your community and ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 231 weeks agoDana Frasz said: Hello Abhishek, You mention that "there is an urgent requirement for communication devices, like mobile sets and computers that will ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 232 weeks agoAbhishek Bharadwaj said: about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 232 weeks agoAbhishek Bharadwaj said: Many thanks for your encouraging comment. You are absolutely right, Night-out activity is very effective in bridging the gap and ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 232 weeks agoAbhishek Bharadwaj said: Really encouraging to read to comment. Thanks a lot. I am working very cosely withthe state governmnet. In my Night-out activity I ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 232 weeks agoDana Frasz said: Hello Abhishek! It is great to see your entry in the competition. You are doing some very impressive work! Could you tell me a bit ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
| 232 weeks agoAbhishek Bharadwaj said: Many thanks for your encouraging comment. You are absolutely right, Night-out activity is very effective in bridging the gap and ... about this Competition Entry. - read more > |
