Yahoo Movies ‘After 30 Years of Work on Mental Health, NDMC is Evicting Us Now’
Video Producer: Maaz Hasan
Video Editor: Purnendu Pritam
(If you feel suicidal or know someone in distress, please reach out to them with kindness and call these numbers of local emergency services, helplines, and mental health NGOs.)
Over 7,00,000* people in the world die of suicide every year, and yet, mental health is not talked about in India to the extent it should be. We at Sumaitri, a crisis intervention NGO for people who are depressed, distressed, or feeling suicidal in New Delhi, are trying hard for over three decades to help such people and support them emotionally.
But now, our future seems to be in the dark and we are struggling for our existence, as notices have been served to us by the New Delhi Municipal Corporation (NDMC) to vacate the space given to us at the Aradhana Hostel Complex on Bhagwan Das Lane in New Delhi.
Sumaitri was founded in 1988 and members started working from an office space provided by the NDMC at Babar Road. Later, we were asked to shift to the present space from where we are carrying out our operations. We used to get an annual lease, which got renewed every year until 2017.
The NDMC didn’t renew our lease after 2017. It came to us as a jolt that the authorities wanted us to vacate. In March 2020, we were served with an eviction notice.
Since we are a voluntary organisation, we neither pay our volunteers nor charge anyone in need. So, for us, it’s not possible to survive and function from any commercial office complex and the NDMC has been very kind for three decades to have been supporting us by providing us space at a negligible rate of Re 1 per month.
However, now despite several requests, the NDMC has sealed three out of four rooms and disconnected the electricity. We have communicated to them that we are also willing to relocate to any other space, but for some reasons beyond our understanding, we are unable to get an extension of our lease.
In our country, we keep preaching about mental health. After so many cases of suicide, we keep telling how important mental health is. But when a voluntary organisation like Sumaitri tries to help people with mental health issues, required support is withdrawn for them to function.
We request the NDMC to help us support the welfare activity that we have been doing for many years from Aradhana Hostel Complex, where they support an old age home and working women’s hostel, especially amid a pandemic, when people are looking for more help on their mental health.
The Quint has reached out the NDMC Chairman, Mr Dharmendra. Calls went unanswered. The response will be added when received.
(*Data from WHO, 2019.)
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