Newsmaker: Meet Bharat Vatwani, a helping hand for mentally-ill vagrant

Vatwani and his wife Smita, both trained psychiatrists, have been working since 1988

The Shraddha Rehabilitation Foundation is about simplicity. “Shraddha is a humane experiment, perhaps the only one of its kind in India, providing treatment, custodial care and rehabilitation to a neglected group of mentally-ill wandering roadside destitute and reuniting them with their lost families...” its mission statement says. 

Its founder, Bharat Vatwani, was among the winners of the 2018 Ramon Magsaysay Award, the equivalent of the Nobel in the social activity sphere.

Explaining the magnitude of the problem, the Foundation says, according to a NIMHANS  report submitted to the central government, mental illness afflicts 13.7 per cent of the population that