APAL’s Background

We are a National Organization spread across 16 states and covering 800 colonies with a major community-based network and effectively managed by people affected by leprosy

Our Core Objective:  to work for the Socioeconomic empowerment & welfare of persons affected by leprosy, their families & persons with disabilities

Our motto: Support & Strengthen US to Sustain Ourselves

Specific areas of work of the organization: Community Mobilization, Awareness, Empowerment, and Advocacy; with Government and other stakeholders.

APAL has focused on consistent Community; Needs and available public domain services linkages and coordination management.  The organization has worked on the Regionalization-Institutionalization of approach for service utilization. The major turning point was the Multipurpose Integration. Integration of existing resources and Leadership based Advocacy among departments, welfare offices, and local community leaders helped to promote sustained Institutional Mutual accountability, especially in terms of extension and provision of services. APAL  a pioneer organization of leprosy; affected people in advocacy and peer support mobilization had played long innings of 5 years serving the fellow affected women and men.

The innovative approaches and the community; mobilization skills have helped an up-teen number of dependent families and homeless individuals of persons affected by leprosy.  The mediation was stronger and more effective as it was a group and consortium presentation than individual voices. The effect of efforts was so effective that even parliamentarians visited the leprosy colony and had interactions with the inhabitants for effective support and synergetic systems development. Mr Sasakawa and the Nippon Foundation have been long-standing support in the effective implementation of the; APAL activities. The efforts have shown a considerable change in the perceptions of the general community and the health officials.  The voices of the affected individuals are being heard and the stigma & discrimination focused on deformity is moving towards a humanistic approach with focused professional and empathized support. It was effective coordination and sustained advocacy that helped the relentless and consistent efforts of APAL to achieve the envisioned emancipation from stigmatized perceptions to a supportive fraternity in the government and Non-Government offices and changing communities. The efforts of APAL  had very little economically viable funding, hence from day one, APAL’s focus was on integrated planning and interaction of socially isolated individuals into the reparable communities and re-integration of dependable families into the mainstream of the societies.

Leprosy control and elimination in India still face many challenges. Although many of the theoretical and practical approaches of the past have been discarded, their careful examination has provided insights for the future. Sustaining the gains made so far and further reducing the disease burden in India led to an innovative and holistic approach that included ongoing education, efforts to identify interventions to dispel stigma, promotion of children’s education, empowerment of the second-generation youth, and inclusion of the social, economic sustenance through livelihood promotion.

The good news is that there is an effective cure for leprosy, but it is important that cases are diagnosed early and treated promptly to prevent the disease from progressing and causing permanent disability. Fear of discrimination is one reason why people may hesitate to seek treatment, which means they may be transmitting the disease to others. This is why initiatives such as the strengthening, empowering, and community-led approaches are being actively promoted by TNF (The Nippon Foundation).  These efforts are important to raise awareness and reduce discrimination and remove barriers in the way of people seeking medical help and also empower and economically sustain themselves.

The Nippon Foundation’s consistent support and partnership with APAL have been a community-focused approach to initiate the action of programs that are planned by the community, Led by the community, and for the community. The two organizations are both committed to joint action to achieve the common goal- that is to achieve an inclusive society where everyone’s rights are respected and can explicitly participate in society.

In line with the efforts of TNF, The reckoning force and the guiding light, the motivating personality is our patron, Mr. Yohei Sasakawa, the chairman of  The Nippon Foundation, the World Health Organization Goodwill Ambassador for Leprosy Elimination, and Japan’s Ambassador for the Human Rights of People Affected by leprosy. He has observed that Leprosy is one of the oldest diseases known to mankind and people affected by it continue to be rejected and neglected by society due to its outdated image of being contagious and disfiguring. However, today it is curable. Hence he has been leading us in our endeavours and moving strives to rise above the social, economic, human, and legal discrimination that persists against people affected by this disease.

With the extensive support and encouragement provided by Mr. Yohei Sasakawa, APAL’s activities are expanding. APAL and its network are playing an important role in bringing about change in the lives of leprosy-affected persons;

The present annual report is a compilation of the year-long activities undertaken by APAL with the support of TNF (The Nippon Foundation).