The plight of the mentally ill persons, especially the women, who are mostly confined in the jails of West Bengal, was appalling till as recently as early 1990. These persons, known as Non Criminal Lunatics (NCLs) used to live in sub human conditions. The Telegraph, a Calcutta newspaper, published a story on 17th October 1990 on their plight with a bold head line “800 NCLs languishing in jails”.

This report could be termed as a trigger for Dr. Joyce Siromoni and a few other like minded people to establish a residential rehabilitation centre for the female NCLs.in March 1992, Paripurnata Half-Way-Home a non profit organization was established. The word Paripurnata means “Hope for Wholeness”. The name reflects the organisation’s philosophy and raison d’etre, which is to render psycho social rehabilitation services to mentally ill women (whom we call Residents), for their eventual reintegration with their families and society at large.

In response to a Public Interest Litigation, the Supreme Court of India appointed a Commission to investigate the issue of mentally ill persons, detained in prisons. The Committee’s report entitled Unlock the Padlock included a recommendation that the approach of Paripurnata (it was only 3 months old) should be accepted by the State Government as a model for further replication. In 1994 the Supreme Court passed a final verdict against detention of Mentally ill persons in penal institutions.

Dr. Joyce Siromoni graduated from Christian Medical College and Hospital, Vellore, Tamil Nadu in 1954. Though she specialized in Gyneacology and Obstetrics, she ultimately found her true calling in the service of the mentally ill, founding the first half-way-home in Bangalore in the early seventies. After seeing the plight of the mentally ill persons in the prisons, she took up the challenge of starting a psychosocial rehabilitation centre in Calcutta, the first such institution in Eastern India.