After retirement, most people spend their time thinking about how they will spend the final years of their life. They spend their time relaxing and enjoying their free time reading or taking care of their house or playing with their grandchildren. However, for 82-year-old Asha Sawardekar, this is not the case. Despite her old age, she is very active in various social welfare programs in Goa.
She is credited with being the person behind starting many first-of-a-kind social welfare projects in Goa. One among them is Sanjeevan’s Arogyadam, Goa’s first post-surgery recovery home for elderly women. Situated on a hilltop at Bandora in Ponda taluka, Sanjeevan is a small rehabilitation facility, staffed with a manager, two doctors, nurses, and physiotherapists. The home provides post-recovery services for the elderly for a small fee.
The institution has been built by Asha, almost single-handedly, with funds raised from generous benefactors.
Society has changed with time. Today, there are many families where the children have migrated to other countries, there are widows with no children, or simply elderly women with children who are themselves too old to offer the required help and support to their parents after surgery. Sanjeevan’s Arogyadam offers this care until the patient is fit to return home.
Sanjeevan was set up around 2003, offering training for nurses and a hostel for elderly women. Asha put in a lot of effort to get the land allotted by the local communidade for the home and to raise funds from family members, friends, and other acquaintances, for its construction. Her nearly 30+ years of experience as an administrator in government service helped her a lot in completing all the formalities needed to start her institution.
Asha was recently felicitated with the Joseph Rufino Cordeiro Foundation (JRCF)’s Award for excellence in recognition of her achievements in the fields of nursing, education and geriatrics in Goa.
She is the daughter of Vinayak Kaisare, a well-known lawyer from Panaji. When she was a teenager, she was sent to Mumbai to complete her post-graduation in arts and then, secure a law degree. When she returned to Goa in 1963, she saw that there was a lot of work to be done to improve the lives of women in the state.
Since she was a postgraduate, she easily got a job as a teacher in a school. After a few years working as a school teacher, she got a job at the secretariat of the Goa Legislative Assembly. After work hours, she would do a lot of social work along with freedom fighter Mitra Bir, with whom she established the first Baguini Mandal of Goa as well as the Goa chapter of the All India women’s conference- through these organisations, they would hold various training programmes for women.
When she was 26, she got married to air force pilot wing commander Vishwanath Sawardekar. She remembers the day when she accompanied her husband to meet the president of India when he was awarded the Kirti Chakra gallantry award for his role in India’s liberation of Bangladesh.
“That day was one of the most joyful days of my life,” says Asha. However, this joy was short-lived. Just a few days after being bestowed with the award, commander Vishwanath Sawardekar passed away, when the plane he was practicing in, crashed. After her husband’s demise, Asha along with her two small kids returned to Mumbai to stay with her husband’s family. In Mumbai, she restarted her social work. However, she realized that she could do much more in her home state, where she had a much larger group of contacts.
Dayanand Bandodkar, who was the first chief minister of Goa, was her neighbour in Panaji. He helped her to get a job as a welfare officer at the Provedoria. While serving at the Provedoria, Asha did a lot of work, including setting up balwadis for toddlers, conducting sessions on proper family planning and nutrition and improving the conditions of old age homes run by the government.
Her mother, Meerabai Kaisare took charge of her house and helped her to give her full time at work. After she started Sanjeevan, she began staying there with her mother. Her daughters Binota, an architect, and Samita, a management consultant, are married and settled. They want her to come and spend time with them. But she tells them that there are so many advantages of living at Sanjeevan, she doesn’t feel like leaving even for a minute!
You may also be interested in: Sanjeevan Complex – Society for Youth Development
