APAL-ASSOCIATION OF PEOPLE AFFECTED BY LEPROSY

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 with Leprosy.

Our Core Objective is, to work for the Socio economic empowerment & welfare of persons
affected by leprosy, their families & differently able people.

Our motto: Support & Strengthen US to Sustain Ourselves

Specific area 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 Regionalization-
Institutionalization of approach for services utilization. The major turning point was the
Multipurpose Integration. Integration of existing resources and Leadership based Advocacy
among departments, welfare offices and local community leadership helped to promote
sustained Institutional Mutual accountability especially in terms of extension and provision of
services. APAL a pioneer organization of the leprosy affected people in advocacy and peer
support mobilization had played a long innings of 5 years serving the fellow affected women
and men.

The innovative approaches and the community mobilization skills have helped up-teen number
of dependant families and homeless leprosy affected individuals. The mediation was stronger
and 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 has been a 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 an
effective coordination and a 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 the
day one, APAL focus was on integrated planning and integration of socially isolated individuals
into the repatriable communities and re-integration of dependable families into the
mainstream of the societies.