TURNING POINT is a voluntary Non Governmental Organization (Registered under Societies Registration Act XXVI of Govt. of West Bengal 1961) engaged in Mental Rehabilitation in a Day-Care Center. The principal aim is to rehabilitate the mentally challenged persons in the society and to fight against the stigma of “ mad” or “Pagal” associated with mental health, which severely criticizes a person who is but only mentally sick and can recover easily.

Knowing Turning Point :

In India, when mental illness strikes to an individual there arises a lot complicacies both with the individual & his family and a sense of utter loss precipitates which may not easily be warded off due to the lack of sufficient resources.


The idea of their child’s handicap in many cases is also initially difficult to comprehend for many parents due to the lack of awareness and acceptance of mental illness. Intense frustration, grievance among family members and anxiety of their child’s well being, cost of living & future is a growing problem for the caregivers.

As for the patients, once they suffer from a mental illness they face successive failures in major fields of life and stigma retreats to seclusion. The society which is also not aware and conscious about the commonness & probability of mental illness, and not being aware of the first hand empathy for persons suffering, cannot readily or systematically provide hospitable opportunities that might alleviate a mental problem or provide scope for creativity to solutions to the troubles face by both parents & the person suffering. Most NGO’s had only been able to achieve meager outputs from them. To provide vocational scope for the intelligent mentally ill & to ensure full utilization of their capabilities, who have lost their career due to prolonged illness, Clinical Psychologist Ishita Sanyal decided to establish a Day Care Center to revive these patients from the misery of seclusion, joblessness & discrimination so society does not scorn them.

Nobel Laureate Professor Amartya Sen, overwhelmed with the promising attitude of Turning Point most readily offered his declaration that he should feel proud to be the patron of this organization with a positive goal. And thus Turning Point was founded in 1998 with a valor to help those unfortunates whose miseries have not been extremely seriously dealt with, neglected, and secluding an individual for the sake of a mental problem was sparsely limelighted as an attitude of inhumanity & insult to brotherhood.