Udayan Care

Udayan Care enables nurturing homes for vulnerable children and family strengthening programs; empowers girls to aspire for and pursue higher education and gain employability; offers communities and youth digital and vocational training to become self-reliant. Through research, training, conferences, and advocacy, the NGO influences policies and practices on ‘Alternative Care’ locally and globally with a focus on the South Asian region.

Major Interventions:

Udayan Shalini Fellowship: The name is derived from conjoining two Sanskrit words “Udayan” and “Shalini” meaning eternal sunrise and a dignified woman respectively. The NGO ensures that no girl with the drive to learn is denied her dream, due to lack of support, and has inducted girls over different disciplines, vocations, prestigious jobs, corporates, schools, colleges, and in Udayan, the rest of the girls are called Shalinis (Dignified Women), they are pursuing fields like Engineering, Medical, Chartered Accountancy, Company Secretary, Law, Software & Telecom, Nursing, and Computer Science, among others. The USF programme has 5 key objectives:

To provide financial support to deserving but needy girl students for education

To provide individual attention, counselling and grooming through personalised mentoring

To provide opportunities through life Skill trainings & personality development workshops

To develop ‘employability skills’ with trainings on career options

To develop social sensitivity and a sense of responsibility

Udayan Ghar Programme: It literally means, ‘Sunshine Homes’ is a unique group-home model founded on the core concept of ‘L.I.F.E.’, an acronym for ‘Living in Family Environment’. It focuses on the holistic development of each child, ensuring they grow up with love, care, and individual attention. The purpose of these Ghars is to nurture Out-of-Home Care (O.H.C.) children including parentless, abandoned or abused children in need of protection. Children between the ages of 6 to 18 years are supported by providing good education, nutritious food, excellent physical and mental health and plenty of growth opportunities. A committed team of caregivers work together to provide the love, protection and guidance that children need to flower.

Once a child reaches the age of 18, they are considered to be adults as per the Juvenile Justice Act and have to leave the care homes. The Aftercare Programme bridges the gap for young adults of the ages 18 to 21 who are leaving their Udayan Ghars, by providing continued rehabilitative services and accommodation options in community, group or scattered housing thereby supporting in the form of continued education, training, counselling, mentoring.

Skill Development: The Udayan Care Information Technology Programme operates with the goal of bringing technology closer to underserved communities and using it as a tool to improve their opportunities of livelihood. Udayan Care introduces and elevates the levels of computer literacy among youth, helping them keep up with the newly digitised world. The programme provides the youth, children and women from economically weaker sections access to IT skills. Courses ranging from stitching, beauty therapy, enamelled products, pottery and papercraft to computer-aided pattern making and graphic designing, designed to empower underserved women are provided in various skill centres.

Udayan Care’s advocacy efforts focuses to create a social impact on child protection and alternative care, basic rights and equality to women, quality education and a decent livelihood.