URJA Trust

The idea to start Urja and run a holistic intervention for homeless young women began taking concrete shape in 2010-11. The co-founders came with the understanding that while there are many organisations working with vulnerable and homeless children, there are hardly any that are working with marginalised runaway and homeless young women. Channelizing and harnessing young people’s energies, and working with them can be very challenging as they are an older, dynamic group. The critical need for working with this group was not lost on the co-founding team, who have cumulatively more than 44 years of experience working in the social development sector across different profiles, in the areas of youth, homelessness, leadership, organisational development, mental health and rehabilitation. After previously working with homeless youth on the street and with mental health issues for almost a decade, the co-founders realised the pressing need to work with homeless young women aged 18 to 35 years, as they form an even more vulnerable and marginalised category within the category of homeless youth

The Homeless Young Women come to Mumbai from all across India, many a times with their children. These homeless young women mostly belong to marginalised and minority community.

To empower homeless young women, our strategies and interventions are 3 pronged

To work directly with the homeless young women, via outreach, our team of social workers, reach out to women and their children at the railway station in need of support or assistance and convince them to come to our 'shelter' where as part of the rehabilitation project, we attend to their fundamental rights to shelter, food along with health and wellbeing providing medical attention for both physical and mental. Our Transformation program, involves physical fitness and outbound adventures, linkages to education, vocational training, livelihood options and access to civil rights. The holistic development programme is aimed at equipping the homeless young women to enable them to create a space for themselves in society and lead their lives with freedom and dignity.

In the past 7 years as part of our direct intervention, URJA has supported and facilitated the journey of over 750 homeless young and provided a protective and safe environment to over 550 homeless young women.

ENGAGEMENT WITH GOVERNMENT SYSTEMS

We work with the railway and city police, government officials and departments through networking and partnerships, so that a safe external environment is created in order for the homeless young women receive the support which she needs immediately. We sensitise and create awareness around various issues like gender, caste, violence against women, homelessness, mental wellbeing and so on.

We have tied up with the Ministry of Women and Child Development and recently become the implementing NGO partner for the ‘One Stop Centre,’ a central government initiative. This is a project where women and children survivors of violence can seek immediate support all under one roof, right from a safe space, tohealth, legal, counselling, police reporting and all other services which she requires.

ENGAGEMENT WITH THE LARGER COMMUNITY

We conduct sessions with communities both privileged and underprivileged, in order to build their awareness around topics of patriarchy, power and gender and caste biases. The young women will ultimately reintegrate into the society, which needs to be accepting and supportive towards them.