(September 2001- August 2004)

The grant was supported by: Sir Dorabji Tata Trust, Mumbai [SDTT]

Project background

As Trustees, we set up the Center for Advocacy in Mental Health in August, 2000, at Fatima Nagar, Wanourie, Pune, to run projects. This was the very first project granted to Bapu Trust. This support grant by SDTT was a foundation grant. The CAMH was set up as a full-fledged organization using this grant.

Work done before CAMH: After registration, the Trust conducted one workshop on “Women and Mental Health” in Pune. This helped us to bring the existence of Bapu Trust before a larger community, and to brainstorm with senior people on ideas for development. With editorial help from Jayasree Kalathil, we also started aaina as one of the first activities of the Trust. Jayasree Kalathil also prepared a comprehensive study report on “Representation of women in drug advertisements”, by studying various drug advertisements and their stereotyping of women. By the time the project started, we had also collaborated with Tathapi Trust on a community publication “Women and mental health”. These activities helped in the development of the project proposal.

The project was supported as an initial, seed grant by SDTT, to pursue the interest and the capacity within the organization, in the area of women’s issues in mental health and advocacy. The project director had published two research books in the area [1], [2] by this time, and the grant supported community based activities as a follow up. A stimulating, supportive and thorough dialogue with the trustees in Bapu Trust preceded the grant.

Project objectives

The purpose of the project was to build a community domain of discourse around the topic of “Women and mental health”.

Specifically, the project aimed to:
	Develop the library and the documentation service to serve the needs of the community (women, women’s organizations, families, students, etc.)
	Develop community friendly resource materials in the area of women and mental health
	Develop training modules in community mental health with women focus
	Create self help groups for women in psychological distress
	Take up relevant documentation studies and conduct workshops topical to the theme of the project

Strategies
Research and academic interest in the area of Women and Mental Health has been growing in the last 10-12 years among psychologists in the University departments, psychiatrists, practicing mental health professionals, women’s organizations, NGOs working at the grassroots level, health education institutions and even media and mass communication units. Women and Mental Health is now increasingly linked with the ‘development’ paradigm and is being discussed in the context of gender equality, empowerment and justice. However, at the community level, there is inadequate knowledge and understanding of mental health concepts or practices. Activists working with a ‘social equality’ framework have not been very comfortable with using psychological concepts that reduce a harsh social reality to individual problems. Neither are they able to reject it wholesale, because of the evident mental distress that they see in their community work. Psychiatrists and psychologists used to a universal model are unable to relate with the fact that gender, and women’s social position, do affect their mental health. Clinical work tends to be socially empty, while community work tends to be technically wanting. Even while there is overall consensus for enabling ‘community work in mental health’, everyday languages linking socio-cultural reality with mental health in a practical and relevant way for NGO use are needed. This proposal is an attempt to build Women and Mental Health into a discipline serving community work in mental health.

The project team was mainly involved in the following two strategies during the project period:
1. Making it possible for the team to work together for the same cause within the functional hierarchy of the organisation
2. Wading through many ideas and possibilities to arrive at what the Center should be doing

Opportunities for learning

The seed grant was flexible enough to allow us the scope to experiment with and learn from our mistakes. During the project period, we have learnt in the following areas:
developing the accounting and book keeping systems, financial audits;
developing rules for overall administration;
working together as a team;
developing a work culture;
library cataloguing and other systems for the library;
objectives and implementation of documentation;
engaging with people on mental health through the archive (oral history) activity;
networking with agencies working in Pune city on mental health;
doing workshops;
developing service programs;
producing a creative stream of literature in mental health.

In some areas we were successful, but did not fare so well in other areas. By the end of the project period, in August 2004, we had well developed ideas on our core competencies. By the end of the SDTT grant, both CAMH and Seher had become full- fledged programs of the Bapu Trust. This is an achievement we are proud of.

Activities and outcomes

Development of the library and the documentation center: The library and documentation center was developed from the support grant. Bhargavi, Jayasree and Dhanashri had developed a library catalogue in the initial stages. This catalogue was field tested and finalised. Various individuals donated books, reports, etc. and these were sorted, catalogued and displayed. An index system was discussed and developed for the documentation files. This now houses many case studies and newspaper reports in the mental health area. Indexing of the various research papers collected by researchers in Bapu was also done. Once we were finished with the work to our satisfaction, we could see that the library was developing a unique character as a non-medical and community friendly resource center in mental health. The Mac Arthur Leadership Development Fund  helped a great deal in moving at full throttle in this direction. The library soon took the shape of a reading and borrowing library.

Community resource materials: Various materials available on mental health and ill health were studied through in-house workshops. We found them to be bio-medical in perspective. We brainstormed ideas on building community publications from people’s experiences of mental health and ill health. We were confronted with the question of how to obtain people’s stories. The idea of doing “oral histories”, or an archive of people’s stories of mental health, was developed. Another idea pursued was, to find out about the available mental health services in Pune city. A comprehensive Mental Health Directory was developed. Research, field-work and interviews with key people in the sector helped us to develop community training materials on “Trauma” and “Schizophrenia”. Bijli was published.

Workshops: During the project period, we conducted two workshops on “Facilitating Legal Activism in Mental Health”. A report on “Mahajan Committee” was prepared for this event, which was dedicated to Ms Malati Ranade, Psychiatric Social Worker. These were facilitated by Prof. Amita Dhanda. We conducted one training program for counselors on “Depression”. We organized an academic conference on “Caste and Mental Health” in collaboration with Dr. Sushrut Jadhav, University College of London. Finally, we conducted a three-day awareness program on Alternative Mental Health, the report of which was published.

Campaigns and advocacy issues: A campaign was done protesting the inhuman death of 28 inmates considered mentally ill and chained to cots in Erwadi, in Tamil Nadu. A public lecture was organized in Pune, with Prof Amita Dhanda as the core speaker. A national consultation on the “Rights of Persons with Mental Illness” was organized in Delhi with the help of Mrs Deepika Nair. We wrote in local newsletters and in journals on the psychiatric abuse of direct ECT.

Training Programs: Community health workers and violence case-workers of Action India, New Delhi, were trained in the area of gender and mental health. A long term capacity development program was undertaken with SNEHDEEP, a development NGO in Pune city.

Self-help in mental health: We discussed the idea of self-help in mental health over many meetings. We had resource persons over, including Mr Anil Vartak (Schizophrenia Awareness Association) and Ms Anupama Keskar (Tilak Maharashtra Vidyapeeth) to share their experiences with the self help movement in mental health. Finally, we decided to start a more structured mental health intervention. Ketki Ranade joined us and developed the Seher program.

Research: A needs assessment study of NGOs in the mental health sector was carried out. Field-work documentation on the “Suicide of farmers in Maharashtra” was written up.

Project Management aspects: Many of the ways of working as people, as teams, and as an organization were developed through this project. This working through was not always easy, as individual values and expectations clashed with hitherto undeveloped organizational values and expectations. The “office rules and regulations manual”, and project management methods, were put together in response to a need to function professionally, efficiently and compassionately. An independent evaluation and “compliance audit” was done in order to streamline the financial and audit system. This exercise proved to be very fruitful. Various policies were drawn up at this time for overall good quality technical and financial performance. The organization developed into a people oriented as well as a performance based one.

Project Director: Bhargavi V Davar
Project Team: Lalita Joshi, Seema Kakade, Deepra Dandekar, Kranti Agnihotri, Darshana Bansode
Seher Team: Ketki Ranade, Darshana Bansode

Thanks to:

1. Amita Dhanda, co-founder and trustee, Bapu Trust, for unflagging encouragement, mentoring, visioning and support through the teething period.
2. Veena Shatrugna, K Lalita, and the Executive of Anveshi, Research Center for Women’s Studies, Hyderabad, for helping in conceptualizing the project, and later, for continuing support through the grant application period.
3. Jasmine Pavri, SDTT for graciously and generously giving time, and interest, in engaging us in continuing dialogue with the grant agency.
4. Pramod Kumar Davar, Soumitra Pathare, Anil Vartak and Sadhana Natu for much support and help in the initial stages of the growth of Bapu Trust and CAMH.
5. Jayasree Kalathil, Ketki Ranade, Suja Chandran, and Danashri Adhikari for hanging together and supporting each other in the initial phases of the organisation’s growth.

[1] Bhargavi V Davar [1999]. Mental health of Indian women. A feminist agenda.
Sage Publications, New Delhi.

[2] Bhargavi V Davar [2001] [Edited] Mental health from a gender perspective. Sage Publications, New Delhi.