workshop photographs: world mental health day

In the previous post, I blogged about Shield’s workshop for community health workers on Alzheimer’s and Related Disorders on October 11. There were 77 community health workers who attended the talks. Here’s a few pictures from that programme.
Click on any picture to view it larger.

Click here to read the related blog post on World Mental Health Day.

world mental health day

October 10 was World Mental Health Day. On the occasion, Shield Foundation organised a workshop titled Alzheimer’s and Related Disorders on October 11. The workshop was targeted at community health workers and a total of 77 workers attended the workshop. The workshop was addressed by three speakers. Given here are their profiles:

Dr. Nilesh Shah is the Head of Department, Department of Psychiatry at Lokmanya Tilak Municipal Medical College and Hospital in Sion. He delivered a talk on ‘Alzheimer’s and Related Disorders.’ It was an orienting talk that focused on the disease, the causes, the symptoms, disease management and preventive measures if any. His session lasted an hour.

Meenakshi Shiledar is a psychologist at Lokmanya Tilak Municipal Medical College and Hospital. She addressed the workshop attendees on ‘Care-giving for Patients Suffering from Alzheimer’s and Related Disorders.’ Her session too was one hour long.

Ms. Arote is a lecturer at Lokmanya Tilak Municipal Nursing College. She delivered a talk on ‘Basic Health Care and Nursing Care Tips for Care Givers.’ Her session lasted 45 minutes.

The vote of thanks was delivered by head organiser Swati Ingole who is Managing Secretary of Shield Foundation and Treasurer of Alzheimer’s and Related Disorders Society of India.

workshop photographs: world Alzheimer’s day

Here are some pictures from the Intergenerational Sensitisation Workshop organised in collaboration with SIES College, Sion to mark World Alzheimer’s Day. The attendees included senior citizens and students from the National Service Scheme (NSS).

Click on any individual photograph to view it larger.

Click here to read the related World Alzheimer’s Day post.

 

 

street play photographs: world Alzheimer’s day

Here are some pictures from the street plays organised in Dharavi to mark World Alzheimer’s Day. Click on any individual photograph to view it larger.

Click here to read the related World Alzheimer’s Day post.

world Alzheimer’s day

Alzheimer’s is a disease that often encounters staggering amounts of ignorance, or worse, misinformation in India. If you are reading this blog, you are privileged in a sense: you know what the Internet is, you know how to browse through it, you know English enough to understand this writing and you know the use of computers.

The situation in the slums is different. Though Dharavi is as vibrant a place as a mini-metropolis, education levels and health awareness are dismally low. Even within the educated classes, few people will be able to tell you what exactly Alzheimer’s is; not much then can be expected of the lower socio-economic strata. September 21 was World Alzheimer’s Day. Very few people seemed to notice.

To mark the occasion, Shield Foundation collaborated with Alzheimer’s and Related Disorders Society of India (ARDSI) and organised street plays in Dharavi. The plays were aimed at educating Dharavi residents about the disease, its causes, symptoms, prevention and ways to manage it. The biggest tragedy with a condition like Alzheimer’s is that the patient’s family, if ignorant, simply fails to recognise it as a disease – often dismissing it as ‘simply old age.’

The street plays used placards, charts and slogans to drive home the point. The aid and equipment needed to manage the disease were also explained. The street plays were organised by Swati Ingole Treasurer, ARDSI with the help of eight student volunteers. The touring street plays performed for four hours in various places in Dharavi.

On September 25,  Shield and ARDSI organised an Intergenerational Sensitisation Workshop for Senior Citizens and National Service Scheme (NSS) Students. This was organised in collaboration with South Indian Educational Society (SIES) College, Sion. Given below are brief profiles of the speakers at the workshop:


Dr. Daksha Pandit is a former Head of Department, Preventive and Social Medicine (PSM) at Lokmanya Tilak Municipal College and Hospital and HOD of PSM at Terna Medical College, Navi Mumbai. She is also a recipient of ‘Savitribai Phule Award’ for best teacher by Mumbai University. She chaired the workshop.

Dr. Shirin Barodawala is a former HOD, Neuropathology at J. J. Medical College and former Secretary of ARDSI. She has contributed to ARDSI as a long standing Honorary Secretary helping with issues like Dementia and Alzheimer’s. She gave a half an hour overview of Alzheimer’s.

Dr. Nilesh Shah’s session was on Living with Alzheimer’s. He outlined stress management tips for patients’ care givers. He also suggested memory exercises that can be useful for patients. His talk lasted one hour.

For the next half an hour, the panel of speakers answered questions raised by the audience. 40 senior citizens and 40 NSS students attended the workshop. Refreshments were served to all before ending the programme.

a brief round-up

Firstly, apologies are in place for the delay in posting here. Hopefully, such delays won’t happen again. Anyway, to give a quick round-up of the activities since our last post:

• The semiweekly outreach programmes in Dharavi mentioned earlier have now become a daily feature. Shield is encouraging more and more adolescents and underprivileged children to join vocational training courses run by us.

• Talking of courses, these vocational training exercises are now offered at highly subsidised rates of Rs.100/- The material needed for the stitching/mehendi work is provided by Shield. This is a collaborative endeavour with the Jan Shikshan Sanstha.

• As for new work in progress, Shield is conducting a rapid survey of residential institutions and facilities such as transit accommodation homes for women, observation homes, orphanages and juvenile delinquent homes in Mumbai. The purpose of this survey is need assessment and avenues for activities for NGOs like Shield. Ten such facilities have been surveyed mainly along the Sion-Trombay highway.

There is some good news in the offing, but that will have to wait till another post!

getting out there

It isn’t uncommon to see many ‘armchair NGOs’ functioning today. One of the biggest issues facing such NGOs is the simple lack of knowledge as to what is needed in the communities that they set out to serve. It isn’t merely a case of missing the problem; it is a fundamental question in development communication – if we misinterpret the problem in the community, how will the community see any credence in the solutions we provide for those (non)problems?

In such a case, community outreach becomes essential. Shield undertakes an ongoing conversation with the elements of the society we serve. Not only does it help in identifying the needs of the people in the community, it also helps in establishing the organisation’s credibility in the eyes of the people. It is a field job, and despite its labouriousness, it has benefits:

1. We can know the core areas of concern for the community
   
2. We can build trust and confidence in the organisation within the community
3. Having established such trust, we can publicise our programmes and initiatives to the people
4. We can build a secondary line of workers for conducting these projects and encourage self-sustaining activities in the community

You see, the whole process becomes efficient and one thing leads to the next! Shield engages in community outreach twice a week, every Monday and Tuesday at the centre in Dharavi. The average attendance has been 15. We discuss educational and social problems of the people.

In cases where the people cannot confide in the presence of a large group, we have been providing case wise counselling for matters such as pre-marital counselling, improving academic performance and cases of domestic violence. One such case of domestic abuse has already been referred to the Government Legal Aid Cell for legal counselling. The follow up on that front is underway.

So far so good! Watch this space for further updates.

what’s been up: january & february

The past two months have been full of activities and we have been off to a good start as a nascent NGO. Just to fill you guys in on what’s happening at Shield, here’s a brief update:

January

Jan 12: As one of our first activities, a ‘Youth Festival’ was organised at Dharavi, especially for women. The turnout was a slim 14; however, the participants had a good time.

Jan 25: Sensing an alarming ignorance about our constitution and fundamental rights of citizens in India, we organised a session on the same. Many people attended the session.

Jan 28: The highlight of the month was the cultural programme at the Samaj Mandir Hall, Matunga Labour Camp, Dharavi. A total of 22 persons performed on the day and 98 people were in attendance as audience.

February

Shield is looking at tying up with schools in Dharavi to conduct workshops/seminars and talks on various issues that most urgently need to be addressed for the students in these schools. Most of the issues discussed are the ones that are not covered in the school syllabi. We have already made a start at that front – three of the sessions were conducted in February.

Feb 15: Indian education is high stress education. For the primary school students coping with this, we discussed the importance to relax from studies and how to do it. For ease of remembrance, we also taught the 56 students present the method of pictorial representation of concepts to be learnt in education. It is common knowledge that visual memory is strongest in children. The idea was to help these kids learn better.

Feb 20: Teenage years are the toughest and yet, often the best and most productive years of our lives. It is therefore important for adolescents to know the ways in which they develop cognitively. If they learn to anticipate and foresee the huge physical and emotional changes that they will go through in their adolescents years, coping with these changes would be easier. To this end, a session was conducted for secondary school kids. Attendance was 36.

Feb 22: As if the growth pangs weren’t enough, secondary school students also have to deal with high-stress examinations. In order to address this, a session extrapolated from the one conducted for primary school students was conducted for the secondary school students too. Thirty-seven students were in attendance.

Here are some pictures of the students at school:



Since then, we have been running a pilot project – a free course in English speaking. At the time of writing, over 10 sessions of the course have been conducted for 14 beneficiaries. Success rate and further updates should be available soon.

Apart from these initiatives, vocational training in mehendi and basic beauty courses is being imparted at the centre everyday from 12 pm to 4 pm to 19 ladies.



We will update soon with the work in March.

a start

Welcome to the Shield Foundation Blog! This being the first post, it should best serve as an FAQs section – so here it is:

1. What is Shield Foundation?

a: The Foundation is a Non-Government Organisation with its Head Office in Nagpur. ‘Shield’ is an acronym for ‘Society for Health, Innovation, Education, Liaisons Development’. The Foundation’s mission is ‘to facilitate good mental and physical health, and to foster equal growth opportunities for everyone in the society’.

2. When did all this start?

a: The idea took root with the formation of an Executive Committee in 2009. Some deliberations and consultations later, a formal resolution to start the Foundation was passed on February 10, 2009.

True to Indian bureaucratic tradition, a lot of paperwork followed and exactly one year after the resolution in Nagpur, Shield Foundation was registered under the Societies Registration Act, 1860 [Registration number – MAH: 165/2010 (N)]

3. What does the Foundation do?

a: To cut a long ‘Aims and Objectives’ section short, the Foundation primarily works with slum populations in areas of education, health and culture. Further, it also provides services for the disabled, vocational training for women, and recreation, counselling and need-based services for the underprivileged strata of the society.

4. Where’s the action?

a: The Foundation does most of its work in Mumbai and Nagpur. For now, a major multi-purpose centre is based in Mumbai at the following address:

SHIELD Foundation,

Buddha Mata Mahila Mandal, Opp. F Ward,

Chawl No. 9, Matunga Labour Camp,

Dharavi , Mumbai -17

5. Whom to contact for collaborations and/or enquiry?

a: All paper correspondence should be addressed to:

Swati Ingole

1-D, Anushakti Nagar,

Opp. Punjab National Bank,

Mumbai - 94

Contact number: +91 98334 06288

You could, of course, save paper and email us instead at either of these IDs:

1. shieldfoundation@gmail.com
2. rbingole@yahoo.com

That’s all for now. Watch this space for updates.