Our History
Helplife is a creation of the charitable minded family of doctors, who were invariably involved in teaching medical students and hosting free camps for the underprivileged during their leisure times. This went on for five years when a lawyer friend guided the family to work in a more organized manner and helped in the registration of the trust.
It is then on 2 nd of June 1999 the Helplife trust came to its existence. The trust Helplife is chaired by Dr. Neelam Bhardwaj who is also the founder trustee of the organization. She is a public health specialist recipient of National and International awards in the use of innovations for promoting appropriate technology in Reproductive Health of women in the remote and difficult areas.
Helplife was providing services to poor women of 12 villages in Khed-Shivapur, taluka Haveli, in Pune India, when it was realized that the adolescent girls were most neglected and 50% of then suffered from Anemia, more neglect was seen in the girls who were physically challenged and have suffered Polio in their childhood.
In 2006 Helplife started an internship program for physically challenged adolescent girls and continues to serve the needs of the children with disability. Over the years it was realized that adolescent health of young women and girls with disability was not only limited to physical and mental health issues, but it was complete neglect of their reproductive Health and Rights that needed urgent attention.
Helplife then started working on the Comprehensive sexual Education (CSE) for the girls who were in-house (EquipHelplife), where over the years program for the girls was developed that was culturally sensitive and taught them how to manage their married lives better with the existing environment of their families. Helplife’s life cycle approach in programming has started important interventions in the area of Respectful Maternity Care (RMC), CSE and Menstrual Health & hygiene within the area of reproductive health of girls with disabilities.
After a period of 15 years Helplife had to scale up its 6 years old piloted program on community-based rehabilitation (CBR) during Covid-19 pandemic emergency in the year 2020, when many families were thrown out of their small businesses and a number of girls with disabilities became unemployed. The pandemic situation came with a number of challenges where Helplife moved into the rural areas for creating livelihood for the young women and men with disability.
The business model created at Helplife for sustainable livelihood is the result of 6 years operational research in CBR, and the finding of the other CSR programs on research in disability from various partners. Our two years of hard core programming has led to creation of this model which is being scaled up in a phased manner in other states of India. Helplife has been associated with the doctors who are academicians and researchers and have made immense contributions in the field of Public Health. Helplife aims to work through Partnerships and coordinates for the reasons of service delivery to the marginalized and poor.
