EXPERIENCES ABOUT GROUP LABS

EXPERIENCES ABOUT GROUP LABS

Group Labs was frankly the most enjoyed class in the first three weeks of the academic session. The Group Labs for me were conducted by Dr. Katy Gandevia and Mrs Sarita from the school of social work. It was a welcome change in the string of classroom sessions that had suddenly become a stark reality of my day-to-day life. The exercise were based on developing insight on human values which are otherwise hidden and untapped inside us unless and until we are instigated or pushed to practice. The first exercise of the group labs was the conscious effort of its kind to know about 20 individuals of the class in a way that was more personal than formal. The exercises that touched me the most were

• The once in which the socio-economic discrimination was demonstrated by the no. of steps we took forward or backward
• The exercise of blindfolding and be led by another person around the block
• The exercise of using private and shared resources to make something unique
• The exercise involving puzzles

These four exercises I think were the most impactful since the values they demonstrated are integral requirements in the practice of social work as a profession. And they are

• to understand that socio-economic stratification exists in the society and that every individual demands respect and space.
• to be able to trust somebody with what one can achieve and give him/her a chance to perform or lead.
• to be able to share and to bare it all to the community that you would work with. To accept and give resources for group usage. This would affirm the commitment you are making to work with them and to enforce the feeling of trust between you and the community.
• to have an eye and to be open to individuals who may need help and try best to accommodate them and their concerns in the activity you are doing.
• to foster a sense of goodwill by adopting policies of social inclusion of all groups in the society and to maintain relationships that will last a lifetime.
• to be a good listener and advocate the practice of the same in the community and group settings
• to respect the views of every individual and practice sensitivity in whatever you say so as not to hurt sentiments
• and most importantly be a practitioner of strong character and honesty

Thanks You
Prasant Mohanty

CONSOLIDATED REPORT FOR INSTITUTIONAL VISITS

To collate learnings of my friends and my self in words is a difficult task, but this is an effort to bridge the gap between the three broad areas of Education, Livelihood and Health; and simultaneously cut across issues and issue-based groups. This is essential because analysis of agencies like these has to have a micro and macro angle to it.

Following illustration demonstrates all the agencies that were visited by the Social Work class of 2011 in the First Semester. As evident in the illustration, the field work secretariat, has done a commendable job in bringing together just an impressive list of agencies that can give a holistic view of the current developmental issues and how social workers are placed in such settings. For a beggar who has been caught by the criminal justice system, a common man's perspective to it will be limited to poverty, at the first instance. However if we apply a bit of reflexivity to the whole matter we shall be able to come up with many new sides to it for example
a health condition that makes the beggar unacceptable to the societal system or
a kid who has brainwashed into following professional beggary or
a caste system phenomena that denied him/her any livelihood or
a simple case where a destitute woman manifests herself into a beggar to protect herself from insecurities around her.

So a simple case of destitution and beggary has a broad-spectrum linkage to diverse themes of education, health and livelihood. I would like to quote another example to show how the institutional visits helped us develop perspectives about social realities.
Though its a shame to realize everyday that child-labour is still legal in the biggest democracy of the world, it is important to delve into the pixels of the large picture to gauge the depth of the issue and to come to a holistic/solution/program/policy/intervention strategy/suggestion that might be able to address most, if not all the reasons of this menace. In Myron Weiner's book 'The Child and The State in India' the author tries to make the shady picture of child labor in India good, by giving sides of argument that are nothing less than fascinating. Its valid to argue why state legislature is not effective to protect our children and why the state is not pushing this issue in totality. I contribute it to many factors like market dynamics, labour economics, class caste structure, maternal and child nutrition, non-mandated system of primary education, employment opportunities for parents, migration, unequal distribution of wealth, minimal representation of the issue by civic bodies and even public sanitation.

I admit that before the informal institutional visits most of us (including me) had a singular and uni-dynamic point of view to this issue which is now magnified because of the diverse nature of the agencies that we profiled and the intense exercise that happens to share perspectives after the visit. The biggest gift this gave me is a peek into the process of critical social observation and participatory communication. As a preview to what we as student social workers should do on the field, the visit sensitized us about techniques and professional angle that we need to carry as our weapons.

For example a general idea about the specially-abled might be that though they are a prey of the shortcomings of the health system they aren't' seen as a inclusive part of the society because of their minimalistic nature of involvement in societal process and because they are seen as an unnecessary menace to the public systems around. So the generalist interpretation is to look at the specially-abled as people who need help. I interpret this as a general incapability to empathize, and press on the point of us normal beings not being able to help ourselves create space for everyone.

In a youth camp of Moral Re-Armament that I had the privilege to attend before coming to TISS, I overheard a statement which will portray something that is very intellectually powerful. “Before you go to help a blind ask if he/she needs help.” The normal citizen by the virtue of ignorance has taken it for granted that every specially-abled needs to be spoon-fed. Many are yet to see what happens when these same individuals are given a chance to co-adapt. It is this sense of responsibility that we have to seek as social workers to be able to reach an about-egalitarian society.

Thank You
Prasant Mohanty

3rd TISS INSTITUTIONAL Visit

INSTITUTION : Koshish, Beggar's Home, Chembur, Mumbai

AGENDA : Institutional Visit
TARGET GROUP : Homeless, Beggars & Destitute
ISSUE : Livelihood, Rehabilitation
NAME : Prasant Mohanty
ROLL NO. : 2009SW89
DATE/DAY : 06.07.09/ Monday

THE ORGANISATION

Koshish started as a field action project of TISS in 2006 when a student happened to bring out issues associated with homeless, beggars and the criminal justice system. Each year thousands of men and women become homeless and are mistaken to be beggars by the criminal justice system. Their livelihoods are shattered when they get trapped in the system. Koshish operates out of Barrack No. 6 of the women’s beggar’s home in Mumbai.

SIGNIFICANT ASPECTS

Koshish runs some very innovative community outreach programs.

• Employer’s Collective is an effort to connect employers and inmates (who were employees earlier or who are perspective employees themselves).

• Night Outs are a platform to reach out to the homeless and discuss their day to day problems. As the name suggests this is done at night when the homeless are done with their job for the day and are settled down. The problems that the homeless gives are taken into consideration during policy building and program formulation.

Koshish runs vocational training courses like sewing, candle making etc for the inmates to pursue alivelihood once they finish their tenure at the beggars home. Later these skilled inmates make products for the market whose returns come to the criminal justice system. When they go out the employers collective helps place them in formal and informal industries. Pallavi, the paraprofessional works on a lifeskills training program for women inmates who are mentally disturbed. This program teaches the women to go back to the society and behave like normal individuals able to work and earn a livelihood for themselves. Also there is a provision for Mukadams. Mukadams are those ex-inmates that have gained livelihood in the beggars home owing to the goodwill they have generated during their tenure as inmates. They stay with inmates and manage them.

The social worker helps in critical tasks of Koshish like program implementation, forming a bridge between the beggar home and TISS. She admitted that its a difficult job to be in this system but its highly satisfying an experience.Koshish is managed by a panel of TISS faculty members, professional social workers and paraprofessionals. It receives a major part of its funding from corporate houses and funding agencies like HDFC and Action Aid.

LEARNING & REFLECTION

As I attempt to establish a reconnection between homelessness and beggary I wish to reconstruct the words that Mr Ruchi Sinha gave out in the fieldwork workshop few weeks back.
“Homelessness is the direct impact of lack of livelihood and for the homeless, getting into the criminal justice framework makes it even difficult to get back to mainstream society”
If one analyses the above statement he/she will realize that Koshish is trying to address a second dimension to the trauma that the homeless face. Firstly owing to the stigma they face in the society, the homeless live a minimal existence and secondly they lose whatever little livelihood option they have when they are trapped by the criminal justice system. The basic problem arises because of the nature of Bombay Beggars Act 1959 which is still followed. Because the clauses are broad and hazy, the homeless, beggars and the destitute are exploited by the law. The fact that Koshish is trying to push the amendment of the act and that a new draft has already been submitted for scrutiny, speaks volumes about the dedication of the team. They hope that through this, they can make rules liberal and at the same time inclusive and non-exploitative.

After observing for sometime I realized that if a person is not in a position to successfully secure his basic right to food and shelter because of lack of livelihood opportunities, how many days will be able to afford basic sanitation and clean pair of clothes; and how many days will be able to resist the temptation of begging. This is something that our constitutional concept of freedom in civic society, should be questioned for.

2nd TISS INSTITUTIONAL Visit

INSTITUTION : Kripa Foundation
Mt. Carmel Church
81/A, Chapel Road, Bandra, Mumbai
AGENDA : Institutional Visit
TARGET GROUP : Alcoholics and Substance Abused
ISSUE : Health, Rehabilitation
NAME : Prasant Mohanty
ROLL NO. : 2009SW89
DATE/DAY : 29.06.09/ Monday

THE ORGANISATION

Since its inception in 1981, Kripa Foundation has gradually grown into the biggest NGO in India working in the area of chemical dependency. It was the brainchild of Padmashree Fr. Joe Periera who is also the Manage Trustee. They currently have centers in 11 states in the country (namely, Maharashtra, Gujarat, Goa, Karnataka, West Bengal, Manipur, Nagaland, Meghalaya, Assam, UP, Jharkhand & NCR. Since Kripa is affiliated to the Union Ministry of Social Justice & Empowerment, Government of India provides grants for its projects. This apart many National and International funding agencies also contribute to Kripa. The Mumbai centre based out of Bandra caters to alcoholics and drug addicts.

SIGNIFICANT ASPECTS

Kripa believes in a concept of ‘holistic rehabilitation’ where in the addict has to surrender himself/herself to the residential process that lasts for over three months. One aspect of the organization that I found really interesting was the ‘Disease Model’ of de-addiction where focus is on changes in lifestyle and abstinence. The model has seen lesser and lesser relapse rates over the years. Another reason for this improvement is the involvement of experiential counselors who were themselves addicts once upon a time. The methodology followed is a blend of Eastern (which include modules of Yoga, Meditation and Taichi) and Western techniques (like the 12 step program suggested by the Alcoholic Anonymous Body of the US).

The family intervention technique used by Kripa is a special mention. During the program they follow a family system therapy where its made sure that the family is brought at par to the developments of the inmate every week and is also interfaced with the patient twice a month to sort out differences and improve relationship. When the program for an inmate is over Kripa does a systematic post discharge follow up to enquire how the inmate has been coping up. All this is really important because outside the boundaries of Kripa, the inmates family is his/her true support and plays an important role in sustenance of sobriety of the inmate. There is however a downside to this model. Kripa is not able to solicit cases with poor/no family backing. The organization also claims that the Mumbai centre only get about 2 charity cases in a month. They added that the charity cases are either referred by a church or a politician and are approved by Fr Periera, the founder himself.

Offlately Kripa has diversified into HIV/AIDS awareness after realizing that a lot of cases of drug abuse are actively contributing to propagation of HIV infection as well. Programs like VRACS(VASAI Region AIDS Control Society) and ADAP(Alcohol & Drug Abuse Prevention Program) are mediums where paraprofessionals and per educators go out to communities and schools to campaign on issues of drug adiction and HIV infection.

LEARNING & REFLECTION

I am reflecting on the importance of institutions like Kripa Foundation in Mumbai based on the experiences that I have had in the last few days. After going through these moments I could really get a balanced perspective on the issue of chemical dependency and its impact of the youth and the affluent class of Mumbai.

‘On the evening of 19th July when I boarded the 505 shuttle from Bandra to TISS, I was unknowingly seated next to a gentleman who kept on insisting that he wanted to smoke. Minutes later he himself confessed that he was addicted to cocaine and took two liberal doses of the grey substance in the midst of the crowd.’

‘The very next day in when I was in queue for a railway ticket, I realized that people around me were intently watching a string of commercial coming on the flat screen TV’s all around me and it was about substance abuse and abstinence.’

It became very evident that the chemical dependency problem is gradually blowing out of proportion in Mumbai and organizations like Kripa will play a key role in sanitizing the addicts. I also came to understand that over the years, Kripa has been able to narrow down its target audience to only a certain class of patients which are mostly from well-to do-families and only marginalized in aspects of the trauma they face and their medical condition. On a more difficult and critical note I would like to outline some aspects of Kripa’s model which if taken care of, can be much more inclusive in terms of reach in numbers.

The dependency of the addict on a family or guardian by their side
The cost factor of the course and affordability (the course costs a minimum of Rs. 14000)
The channels adopted to refer a charity case
The focus on cure and not prevention
The mandate for inmates to discontinue practice of livelihood for the period of treatment

One reason for being disappointed was that most of the organizations that are working against chemical dependency follow a curative philosophy and not preventive(which is very prevalent in the West). Kripa’s harm minimization measures introduced in community settings are quite controversial. On a positive note, providing fresh needles and contraceptive protection for drug users is a novel way to check the spread of HIV infection but this can also provide a scope for the drug addicts to be more generous and reckless in their actions. Furthermore they can use the same freebies to lure people into drug usage.

Also it felt good to hear that Kripa is a very flat organization in terms of institutional hierarchy. But this statement was later followed by a very contradictory statement which gave hints of a possible one-man-show and underlying redtapism in the system. Having said all that and considering the amount of influence drugs and alcohol have on today’s youth, Kripa’s existing intervention model has got tremendous scope in all the geographic areas where their centers have sprung up.

1st TISS INSTITUTIONAL Visit

INSTITUTION : Bombay Institute for the Deaf and the Mute

3, Nesbit Road, Opposite Mazagaon Court
Mazagaon, Mumbai 400010
AGENDA : Institutional Visit
TARGET GROUP : Children
ISSUE : Disability (Deaf and Mute), Education
NAME : Prasant Mohanty
ROLL No. : 2009SW88
DATE/DAY : 22.06.09/ Monday

THE ORGANISATION

Set against the serious foreground of the Mazagaon Court, the Bombay Institute for the Deaf and the Mute stands guard to a history of 175 years of devoted service to the hearing impaired, the deaf and the mute. When the institute started back in 1885 it was the first of its kind in Asia and today it caters to 175 students, 95% of whom come from the lower socio-economic strata of Urban and Suburban Mumbai. The institute that is funded by the Social Welfare department of the Govt. Of Maharashtra and by a handful of willing and generous organizations, conducts 3 fulltime programs in English, Hindi and Marathi that run till SSC level. The teachers of the institute have all received special training from the Ali Awar Jung Institute to impart education and life skills to the hearing impaired.

SIGNIFICANT ASPECTS

The Infrastructural aspects of the institute are what set them apart from the normal schools.

• The classrooms are equipped with hearing aid equipment that is used to communicate with students.

• Each student has his/her own personal hearing kit that put on to enhances their hearing capacity.

• Another feature is the loop induction system which was donated to the institute by an organization few years back. It is an integrated operational arrangement of speakers, lights and bells spread across the whole Institute and can be found on the corridors, in the classes and the surroundings; and is controlled from the Principal's Office. It provides additional sensory experience for students to interpret basic information (for example, to know when a class ends or begins). This system is also used by the Principal to communicate any messages to all the class and to call upon a student or a facilitator.

LEARNING & REFLECTION

The Institute has over the period of 175 years tailored its organizational structure and has evolved into what has been demonstrated in the illustration given below which basically shows how control information flows. The institute caters to only to the hearing impaired and of both types, congenital & acquired. It has been noticed that a lot of students of the institute are from the Muslim community and their impairment is contributed primarily to the fact that they encourage marriages within kith and kin. The school is trying to sensitize parents about do and don’t’s to avoid and lessen such occurrences in the future. Also as majority of the students are from informal settlements in urban and suburban Mumbai and they commute varying distances to study in the institute. The Government does its bit by providing free public transportation to the students.

Learning for the specially-abled is a highly structured approach. The education system in this special institute is four fold. It caters to the following basic needs of the students.
(i) to provide life skills for self-identification and for identifying agents in the society that they need to interact with, for normal day-to-day living.
(ii) to help master at least one language that they can use for communication with the world around them
(iii) to provide opportunity to learn vocational skills for pursuing livelihood after the students are done with their education. and
(iv) to facilitate for psychological counseling and rehabilitation to the students
As evident from the above points, the techniques used to teach the students have been deeply thought after and are complex to interpret. They have been drawn from years of experience and learning.

The fact that the students have to go ahead and compete with the normal students and then with normal citizens under the same system, creates a pressure-cooker situation. This apart the discrimination that they face in the society and in their family, calls for timely psycho-social intervention. The students are taught to tame that feeling of agitation and the task for them is clearly cut out from day 1 of their induction. Infact work for them begins even before day one. The day they come to get admitted to the institute, they are routed to the Ali Awar Jung Institute to get an array of tests done to determine the degree of handicap (which includes the Audiogram and the IQ Report). This follows queuing up at the JJ Govt. Hospital to get the handicapped certificate. And these documents and reports form the basic criterion for entry into the institute.

For the student who is just a kid at that moment, this arduous process introduces him/her into the mainstream realities associated with being a handicap. In the institute however, the students are exposed to a rather caring system of learning. The education system is less taxing here and more task oriented that other conventional schools. Emphasis in the initial classes is laid on improving and mastering communication techniques that becomes a foundation for the education they would like to have. This apart, proficiency in vocational trades is absolutely mandatory for which a wide range of options are available to the students (like computers, type writing, screen printing, jewelry making, candle making, cookery, book binding & ornamental flower making etc). Having said that, since each student coping with this elaborate system also suffers from a different degree of disability and has IQ levels that differs from other, there is no system of dropouts. Only when a student masters the techniques required for one grade, is he/she allowed to go into the next grade. Also because the community outreach program is not so strong the school doesn’t get many new entries every year.

Pedagogy of Teaching : The whole idea of training the hearing impaired is to start helping them make use of their other working sense to the maximum. So students are initially taught to connect common words by the use of actions, images and objects. This is later combined with an advanced concept of ‘Total Communication’ in which two aspects are stressed upon. One, the Auditory Training and Two, the Lip Reading. The auditory training focuses on using whatever minimal voice or auditory abilities they have, to spell out alphabets etc using pitch modulation and vocal vibrations. Lip reading is perhaps the most important quality the students learn to master where they can connect to what others are saying. For imparting instructions a semicircular arrangement of seating is practiced in all classes which facilitates both the aspects of the total communication. There is use of microteaching methodology in which a teacher does not get more than 10 students to take care of, in a year. This ratio is lower in elementary classes. A lot of individual and group interactions happen amongst all the participants of the class (it teachers and students alike) which magnifies the learning experience. Another unique technique that they use to acquaint students with the practicality of day-to-day living is the ‘Interact Club’, where the students are given practical assignments to procure materials and essentials from the market for their vocational classes. Before they engage in assignments of this nature, they are taught how to transact using money. This exercise is however based on a structured approach that takes many years to connect to and master. For instance the students are first taught to recognize the material and means to identify and spell it to others, then to recognize the shop, and to communicate with the shopkeeper and then to use money to carry out the transaction.
Though the specially-abled students are trained through meticulously designed methods to compete with general student in the state board exams, there always remains that big gap in ideology between the kids of this school and the normal schools.

Role of the Social Worker :- I realized that the social worker is an integral and critical cog in the machinery of the institute. Sangeeta is the one and only social worker employed by the school. Like the teachers of the institute, she also draws her salary from the Social Welfare Dept.. The social worker takes care of the following aspects of the institute.
(i) Identifies prospective funding opportunities and pursues them as and when required.
(ii) Arranges for external medical, physiotherapic and counseling help for the students and the teachers
(iii) Helps in procurement of equipment for the school and hearing aid for the students and finds willing donors for the hearing aid (as they are a costly affair for the students to handle)
(iv) Supervises the process of admission and facilitates candidate scanning and background study
(v) Provides guidance to student by being a counselor
(vi) Finds out outreach opportunities for the students
(vii) Finds out avenues for family and community sensitization
(viii) Collaborates with external agencies like the Judiciary and Police
(ix) Analyzes timely reports of students and design remedial approaches for correction

As disturbing as it may sound, the position of Social Worker that had been introduced in mid 80’s back by the Government because of Mrs. Leena Kashyap’s intervention has now been dropped. So technically speaking there will be no successor to her when she quits the institute. Also it is worth noting that there is a vacant position of physiotherapist lying for many years together because of the poor salary structure. Also the institute currently requires mirrors for all the class rooms to help students practice lip-reading and other aspects of communication.