BS : Nippon to help leprosy survivors find their feet : Sept 25, 2007

Nippon to help leprosy survivors find their feet

BS Reporter / New Delhi September 25, 2007

The Sasakawa India Leprosy Foundation (SILF), the yet to be launched arm of
the Nippon Foundation, plans to form an alliance with Indian companies for a
socio-economic rehabilitation project for leprosy survivors. The Nippon
Foundation is the humanitarian arm of the Nippon group.

SILF, with a corpus of $10 million, will be launched next month by former
head of the Nippon group and chairman of Nippon Foundation Yohu Sasakawa.
Meanwhile, SILF has got CII chief mentor Tapas Sen on board and is talking
to several other companies for tie-ups.

"The project, to cover over 50 lakh people in the country, will provide
leprosy survivors vocational education and livelihoods," said Sudipto Kumar
Pal, media advisor, SILF.

Most of these people live in over 700 colonies in the country and earn a
living by begging, according to a survey done by NGO IDEA.

SILF Director Vineeta Shankar said, "We want to end this. The availability
of drugs which cure leprosy totally ensures that most cases do not end in
disability.

Hence, almost all those who recover can be absorbed into productive
activity. Our job will be to train people who are not disabled in marketable
skills and get them to earn a living too.

Sasakawa Healthcare Foundation, which comes under the umbrella body of
Nippon Foundation, was so far only confined to providing medical help and
medical rehab.

It is for the first time that Nippon is entering into a social and
economical rehabilitation programme aimed at helping persons recovered from
leprosy.

According to the World Health Organisation (WHO), 11 million people in India
have been cured of leprosy in the last 10 years.

Vineeta Shankar said the initiative would be taken up in collaboration with
the local NGOs and corporate partners.

"The project will also have a micro finance component. However, it will not
be just savings. It has to be something big in terms of livelihood, with
proper linkage to markets," she added.

The Nippon Foundation had supported WHO in its free leprosy medication
initiative in 1994. Today, the modern form of the disease is curable and
hence not contagious. However, the medieval stigma stays.

Shankar said the foundation would urge companies to open their doors to
leprosy survivors by training and employing them in low-technology jobs.
"This would be the biggest achievement in terms of social rehabilitation for
us," she said.

Publication : BS; Section : Social Enterprise; Pg : 13; Date : 25/9/07
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