What we do

Focus Area / 01

Victim Rehabilitation & Access to Justice

Crime is a crisis for the victims and the organization provides psychological, social and legal help to enable victims to live a just and dignified life.

When a crime is committed, the victim is physically and mentally scared and needs the advice of a neutral person who knows how the criminal justice system works and its role in it. But such resources viz. a lawyer & mental health professional are beyond the victim’s reach and affordability.

Our ‘Psychological First Aid’ is the first-line social and legal support that DISHA provides to the victims either in person or (since 2014) over the phone. 

After hearing the victim’s inquiry or need, the victim is counselled and helped to resolve their issue by being referred to the police, district legal services authority or district hospitals for further help.

Our social workers  focus on the children of the victim’s family. They understand what is going on in the minds of children and allow them to ventilate their feelings. Social workers help children identify their own problems and needs and explain their role in solving them from time to time.

Social workers make special efforts to ensure that children do not drop out of school or turn to child labor due to the financial crisis created in the family due to crime.

The child of a victim with good academic performance is honored at the organization’s annual event and placed as role models in front of other victims.

If an expert is needed, children are referred at the expense of DISHA. 

The entire responsibility of running the house falls on the victim’s spouse due to her husband’s murder or permanent disability. 

Then either her children drop out of school to help her or she goes to the cities to earn more money but are more likely to fall victim to the urban problem or take the wrong path.

Therefore, DISHA pays the seed money of Rs. 7000 to the victim to start a small business. This type of seed money is given after complete study of the individual, the need and the feasibility of running the business in the said village. 

If the victim has been murdered or permanently disabled, the family’s sources of income run out from that day. The savings made so far are spent on the medical treatment of the victim.

DISHA provides Rs. 5000 per month for 3 months to meet the basic needs of the victim’s family.

This emergency assistance is primarily provided to avail medical, legal, psychological, counselling support or daily sustenance.

Focus Area / 02

Responsive Criminal Justice System

DISHA helps the stakeholders in the criminal justice system to ensure that everyone who comes under the criminal justice system, whether they are a victim or a common man, gets fair & respectful treatment while receiving justice

The key factor in helping the victim is compensation for rehabilitation, which the Indian judiciary has read as an integral part of the ‘right to life’. The Criminal Procedure Code was amended in 2008 to bring this principle into existence, which came in force in 2009, and each state took its own time to formulate the scheme.

In the year 2013, DISHA filed a new PIL (66/2013) for the activation of the Victim Compensation Scheme, which was concluded with formation of the Maharashtra Victim Compensation Scheme in year 2014 with budgetary provision of rupees 1.23 crore. 

Every year, using the implementation statistics of the Maharashtra Victims Compensation Scheme – 2014, DISHA creates awareness in police and trial courts to ensure that victims in all districts of Maharashtra get compensation for rehabilitation.

DISHA imparts training on ‘Victim Rehabilitation and Compensation’ to the police, government prosecutors and judicial officers in year 2011. This training also includes grassroots level systems like Police Patil and Tanta Mukta Samiti, on the topic of crime prevention and awareness. This kind of training of DISHA has increased sensitivity of police & trial courts toward the plight of victim and their rehabilitation.

The Judicial Officers Training Institute (JOTI) invites DISHA for training on ‘Victim Rehabilitation and Compensation’ for each new batch of Public Prosecutor.

Subsequently, in collaboration with the Maharashtra State Police, DISHA has developed a comprehensive training module for the police on ‘Rehabilitation and Compensation of Victims’, which will be used uniformly in all police training centers across Maharashtra. 

Further the Special Inspector General of Police (Law and Order), has given letter to DISHA to conduct training on ‘Compensation to Victims’ all over Maharashtra.

Police station is the first contact point for a physically and mentally disturbed victim after a crime.  The police machinery is understaffed, overburdened and not equipped to handle victim that results in hasty and harsh treatment to the complainant or the victim. 

Therefore, in collaboration with the Amravati Rural Police, a help desk was set up in the police station to create a pro-victim atmosphere by DISHA. This helpdesk offers honest, appropriate social and legal guidance as well as ‘psychological first aid’ to help victims (men or women or others) make the right decisions to get justice.

Realising the importance of helpdesk in case of vulnerable women, children and the elderly, it has been replicated in 30 police stations so far. The mobile help desk has been approached by many vulnerable victims and important stakeholders in the system such as police personnel, police patils, anganwadi workers and protection officers.

Focus Area / 03

Crime Prevention & Awareness

Due to ignorance, lack of information and neglect, many people continue to suffer to violence. With the right information and help, crime can be prevented and even if it happens, immediate help can be sought from the system

The Community Center is an initiative for the development of vulnerable children in the Amravati slums. The parents or guardians in the slums are either incapable or unwilling to handle the emotional, physical and mental needs of the children.

The center was started in 2011 with 11 children. The community center has helped more than 600 children in the last nine years. Children between the ages of 8 and 14 attend the center 3 hours a day to learn basic Microsoft Office skills, e-learning classes (state board), arts and crafts and essential life skills along with awareness session to prevent crime against children. The children studying in this center are imparted with practical knowledge so that they can face any problem in life with confidence

Activities of community center Wadali (Amravati) and Wathoda (Tiwasa block)

  • Digital Literacy  
  • E-Learning Class (Maharashtra State Board School Curriculum for 1st to 10th in English, Marathi)
  • Life skills & mental wellbeing  
  • Awareness for prevention of crime by & against children (substance abuse, mobile addiction, relationship violence, bullying) 
  • Art & Craft

For this, crime is prevented by conducting awareness programs among village boys, teenage girls, women and youth.

Trivial and unresolved disputes lead to heinous crimes in rural districts. Also, victims, potential victims and vulnerable people live in villages who have no one to help them and should be informed how to stop violence against them. There is a police patil system in the village, but remain inactive in this regard due to lack of manpower and knowledge. Therefore, with the help of 4 public-spirited people and police patil, DISHA sets up an avenue to settle disputes in the village and establish peace in the village. 

In addition, DISHA conducts awareness programs for crime prevention for children, adolescent girls, women and youth in villages.

DISHA educate children, teenagers and college going youth through awareness sessions to stay safe and happy without falling prey to emotional ups and downs, competition, temptations, challenges, attractions, one-sided love, violence in a love affair, addictions during adolescence.

The aim of these sessions is to create awareness to prevent crime against and by the children. At the same time, information about the people, government system, NGOs who can help them is discussed along with the contact numbers for further help.

DISHA has been invited by all the recognized and government schools and colleges in Vidarbha for conducting these sessions regularly.

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mental health clinic

Types of physical and mental abuse experienced by victims of crime often lead to serious mental or emotional health consequences, including severe guilt, post-traumatic stress disorder, depression, anxiety, alcohol & drug abuse and eating disorders. Victims often need mental health care as part of a comprehensive rehabilitation process that is currently available to privileged people. 

DISHA aspires to provide trauma-informed mental health treatment to every victim.