The Banyan is an organization that cares for and rehabilitates homeless women with mental illness found in the streets of Chennai, India. The organization provides women a safe shelter, care, medical attention, and a supportive environment to enable them to recover and to take responsibility for their lives again. The group also supports the women's return to their families and communities; when this is not possible, it supports the women in setting up new lives for themselves.

The Banyan has expanded from its original remit of homeless mentally ill women alone and now provides community based out patient services both in Chennai and in the rural setting of Kovalam, Kanchipuram District. By offering accessible psychiatric care to clients in these settings, The Banyan provides a model for a sector which currently lacks effective treatment options for those from low-income backgrounds.

The Banyan is an NGO that provides rescue, treatment, rehabilitation and reintegration for homeless women with mental health issues.The Banyan was registered as a Trust on August 27th, 1993. We concentrate on the inter-related issues of homelessness, poverty and mental health in India. The Banyan currently operates a number of projects that have evolved over time. We are now paving inroads towards providing solutions to mental health issues through implementing client-focused interventions based on research and experience.

It was the plight of a homeless, wandering and semi clothed woman suffering from mental illness that conceptualised the birth of The Banyan 17 years ago. Vandana Gopikumar and Vaishnavi Jayakumar who were then studying at The Women's Christian College in Chennai came across a homeless woman in distress on the road in front of their college. When all attempts to find a secure shelter for the woman who was in desperate need of medical and psychiatric treatment failed, Vandana and Vaishnavi decided to rent a place for the woman and others in the same situation and after that there was no looking back.

With the rented house filling up at an alarming rate, the numbers crossing 100, it had become imperative that The Banyan have a building of its own. With the land donated by the government, and two years of fundraising and support from everyone, from school children to multi-national corporations, The Banyan Dream home became a reality on April 15th, 2002 - of fully equipped, comfortable, living space for those who until recently had less than nothing to call their own. Designed in two blocks, residential and therapeutic, the new home included consulting rooms, sick bays, an auditorium, vocational training unit, dinning hall and recreational therapy unit apart from ten airy dormitories.

: The vision of The Banyan is to ensure that no mentally ill homeless person is left uncared and unattended for in the streets. With this in mind, The Banyan is taking a strong role in lobbying for the rights of the homeless mentally ill in order to facilitate localised access to mental health care. The Banyan draws its strength from its hundreds of volunteers and well-wishers from around the world, whose support is a driving force for making this world a more humane and caring place.

Rehabilitation philosophy

According to The Banyan's website:

: Although The Banyan offers a comfortable home to women in distress, it is important to remember that The Banyan is not an institution for lifetime patients. The ultimate goals of the project being rehabilitation and empowerment, The Banyan is an effort to reunite the women with their families and to help them reintegrate back into the mainstream society to be able to lead normal lives again. : : The rehabilitation aspect of The Banyan’s work has raised attention and controversy in the public for quite some time. Traditional communities in Indian society do not generally accept the unexplained absence of their female members for any length of time, the place of the woman being either behind the veils of the purdah or in the confines of her parents’ or husband’s house. The ‘problem community’ for rehabilitation purposes has generally been the Indian middle class, where the concept of a woman’s place still seems to hold strong. For instance, a current resident, Sheela, has been waiting to go home for a years, but has not been accepted by the family for whatever the reason may be. In cases like Sheela’s, The Banyan tries to help the resident by arranging work for her either at The Banyan or outside. However, considering the everyday struggle with financial resources, the community of recovering patients staying permanently at The Banyan cannot afford to grow. : : Communities with a lower socio-economic status have generally been more accepting to returning residents, due to a different moral code and difference in beliefs and rituals. Their attitudes have helped so many recovered women unite with their families all over India and allowed us to see many happy reunions, overwhelming as they are when a long-lost member of the family, thought to have no hope in life, walks back home ‘reborn’. For many more such happy endings, The Banyan will continue to lobby for the rights of the mentally ill and to raise awareness in the communities in accepting mentally ill individuals into our society. This involves counselling to those suffering from mental health issues in the community and giving them advice for correct treatment and how best to cope with the emotional baggage brought on by mental illness in the family.

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