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Swanchetan - Helpline providing emotional support to survivors of violence

Wednesday August 24, 2011 , 3 min Read

The winner of UN Public Services Award & NASSCOM Social Innovation HonorsSwanchetan is a non-profit organization that provides emotional support to survivors of violence, abuse and trauma. Swanchetan was founded in 1999 by Rajat Mitra who is a clinical psychologist by profession. He has done his Bachelors and Masters in Psychology from Delhi University and Doctorate in clinical psychology from the US.

Never having worked for a regular clinic, Rajat has always been in the field of service. He now has experience of over 25 years in this field. Yourstory.in caught up with him to know more about his initiative and the challenges Swanchetan faces. He says, “I witnessed an experience wherein a family had to undergo grave injustice and its repercussions moved me deeply. I intervened and could make difference in their lives. This is what led me to work at a ground level. In a country like India, it is appalling to see the lack of funding for justice. It is very easy to find finance for building temples and the likes, but never for a cause which directly affects the human life; it is a pity that one can hardly find any support for this.”


Genpact

Started 12 years back, Swanchetan now has a team of 8 and works in the field of child sexual abuse, gender violence, human trafficking, terrorist violence, ethnic violence, torture and abuse. They work for the betterment of the society in spite of receiving a lot of threats from external agencies. It’s very hard to work with a system where corruption and unprofessionalism is rampant but their team has managed to achieve this feat.Swanchetan has the backing of some of the most notable names like Justice V R Krishna Iyer, Justice V S Malimath, Mr. Basil Fernando, an internationally known human rights activist and Dr. Bo Brautigam, a clinical psychologist from Swaeden and other diverse groups of people from across the world. Justice V Iyer has a lot of weightage in the judicial system and has also been involved with the Anna Hazare case as well. Swanchetan has stuck to their task and their efforts have been recently recognized by the NSIH(Nasscom Social Innovation Honours). According to Rajat, these recognitions give them the push to continue what they’ve been doing for so long and it’s a very well deserved pat on the back that everyone requires. Many of the success stories can be read on the Swanchetan website (www.swanchetan.org).

We wish Swanchetan much success and hope they receive all the support required to carry out their noble deeds.

For more details about NSIH, click here. To apply for NSIH honors 2012, click here.

 

Jubin Mehta | YourStory.in