It has been one of the busiest visits I have had at RUHSA even counting the time I successfully managed to squeeze a 5000km road trip to the Himalayas in between village visits. RUHSA is such a busy, active and productive place nowadays that there is so much to see and do. In addition, my time at Celine's was also busy, although I was no longer doing the Karuna Niwas website, which appears to be down. Grrr. A good example of paternalism not working, I feel. Quite annoyed by that, but will choose a time apart from his wedding to discuss it with Sudhir. Anyway, there are a few interesting things going on with Celine too, namely that she wants to develop the Spoken English language classes which are apparently successful and so it was timely that I should be spending time with current & retired teachers, which is what Victoria's family seems to consist of mainly. I am hoping that Caroline, who was absolutely lovely and enthusiastic, will be able to liaise with Celine and develop a link with her school from which both will benefit. Hopefully, students wanting a year off can spend 3 months with Celine teaching all kinds of people spoken English. It will be even better if I don't have to organise it because I am at capacity and I don't have any direct links myself anyway. So fingers crossed that will work.
At RUHSA over the last few days I have been cycling around like a loony (and receiving a response in kind from the villagers as I whizz by) going on field visits with the OT and visiting the increasing numbers of elderly centres as well as meeting the women of the PLF and SHGs who are very very interested in developing social welfare projects in their areas as discussed previously, with capital input (as opposed to income stream) from the UK charity. In addition I heard about a farmer's club which is being started using an interest free-loan from another UK charity to buy cows, which the farmers club members will pay back and the money will also be used to fund social welfare programs as well. The OTs field visits are part of the community based rehabilitation program which is trying to tackle the overwhelming problem of adults and children with mental health needs. The most visible part of the iceberg of this particular problem are children with learning difficulties and psychotic adults, but of course, mental health needs go much deeper and farther than that, not least extending to the care-givers of this very disabled & dysfunctional group of people who tend to require 24/7 & difficult input. It's early days and the problem seems to be beyond the scope of what is set up now, but little by little we can develop and evolve it into something which provides a wider benefit than it can possibly do so at the moment.
So we have some clear plans in place and expectations to be delivered in January when I or Richard, or indeed both revisit with a view to setting up the funding for the next years donations. For the first time there is a real sense of iterative progress rather than serendipitous change and it's good.
At RUHSA over the last few days I have been cycling around like a loony (and receiving a response in kind from the villagers as I whizz by) going on field visits with the OT and visiting the increasing numbers of elderly centres as well as meeting the women of the PLF and SHGs who are very very interested in developing social welfare projects in their areas as discussed previously, with capital input (as opposed to income stream) from the UK charity. In addition I heard about a farmer's club which is being started using an interest free-loan from another UK charity to buy cows, which the farmers club members will pay back and the money will also be used to fund social welfare programs as well. The OTs field visits are part of the community based rehabilitation program which is trying to tackle the overwhelming problem of adults and children with mental health needs. The most visible part of the iceberg of this particular problem are children with learning difficulties and psychotic adults, but of course, mental health needs go much deeper and farther than that, not least extending to the care-givers of this very disabled & dysfunctional group of people who tend to require 24/7 & difficult input. It's early days and the problem seems to be beyond the scope of what is set up now, but little by little we can develop and evolve it into something which provides a wider benefit than it can possibly do so at the moment.
So we have some clear plans in place and expectations to be delivered in January when I or Richard, or indeed both revisit with a view to setting up the funding for the next years donations. For the first time there is a real sense of iterative progress rather than serendipitous change and it's good.
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