In July 2005 Mandy Lau joined Antara alongside ‘Friends of Antara UK’ volunteers Katy Riley and Paul O’Brien, to live and work in the Antaragram centre for 5 weeks. Mandy is currently completing her degree in psychology at York University and the article below is an extract from her report to the university.

My trip began on the 19th July 2005 when I met up with fellow volunteer Katy Riley at London Heathrow. After a 10hr flight we arrived at Kolkata Airport. We were fortunate enough to have members of staff from the hospital to collect us from the airport and they warmly welcomed us to India. It was actually quite funny and surprising to see that the vehicle that came to collect us was AN AMBULANCE! Anyway, the Indian staff all seemed very friendly and we settled into one of the bedrooms in the female staff’s residence blocks.

During the first week of my placement, I was allocated morning duty in the dispensary in the outpatient unit and afternoon duty in the occupational (or ‘work’) therapy. In the outpatient unit I had to help sort out the right number of tablets from reading a given prescription. This could be slightly monotonous but it was still a good opportunity to get to know the staff better. In addition, you get to do a bit of easy maths working out how many pills you need to give patients with different courses of treatments and it was fun and reassuring when you gradually got better at your job. There are four different occupation therapy sessions including making and designing recycled cards, producing jute cotton products, plastic welding and textile. I was mainly involved in designing cards in the recycled cards unit since that was the simplest task of all and the most important thing was the chance to get to know the patients and providing them with encouragement when that was needed. Most OT participants were either ex-patients or patients in rehabilitation and they often have a rather saddening story behind them. For instance, they may have been neglected by their family and some of them have nowhere to go beyond staying in Antaragram.

Other tasks I was involved in include the participation in group therapy. This was a one-hour singing session that happens on every Thursday and it was an interactive session between the staff and the patients. Each of the patients and staff sang a solo in turn while the others enjoyed the song. While I was there the staff made me join in and I decided to sing a song in my native language, Cantonese. Although they did not understand what I sang, I still felt appreciated, as they remained silent and listened carefully to me.

 I found that going on the wards was the most challenging part of my work since you were exposed to patients with relatively severe mental problems. There are six wards in Antaragram, three of which were for men, two for women and one ward for children. The children’s ward was a new ward and it had received first admissions in August. When I went on the wards I often discussed with the psychiatric social worker the nature of the illness of different patients. I was also allocated with particular patients to interact with them. Another important part of my job involved reassuring the patients, particularly the newly admitted ones who found it hard to adapt to their new environment, that they would make much progress and improvement if they have the belief that they could get better, if not fully recovered, and go back to their homes with possible continual medication. Being on the wards were particularly rewarding as the patients often value your presence. In addition, the cultural exchange we experienced was pleasing. I was questioned on Chinese food on various occasions in addition to other cultural events and traditions.

In addition, because the children’s ward was a new ward, I was able to observe the progress of the first few children admissions of the hospital and understand the nature of the child guidance team’s work. The passion and commitment that that different members of the child guidance team devote to each case and the progress of the children’s illness as a result assured me that teamwork is really important: it was promising to see increasingly appropriate responses to my attempt to interact with the children, as such cases as children with mental retardation could often be trained to respond more appropriately with behavioural measures.
Besides involving myself in various tasks, I took part in other trips organised by the outreach clinic at Anatragram. The outreach clinic happens on Tuesdays at two alternative sites that are both roughly two hours drive anyway from the hospital. Its aim is to help the poorest of the poor who could not afford the travel fees to other locations to consult doctors for both physical and mental illnesses; some of them obtain medication for their mental illnesses so that they could continue to support themselves rather than being allocated to a home. At the outreach clinic, I could see the pain the family members could suffer from a child suffering mental illnesses, as they may endure the aggressive behaviour or even violence, in addition to the stigma of the illnesses accompanied with them, not to mention that they had to cope with poverty in the first place. I understood that the lives of the mentally ill depend on the understanding and acceptance of their family as well as the society and that in some places in this world, life is full of suffering, but ironically, filled with love.
                                                  
Overall, the placement has been challenging but rewarding, I got to experience notions very much contaminated with cliché in the present era and I feel that my concepts of love, altruism and suffering have all been deepened and I hope that I could further this work by involving in Antara Society at York. Mandy Lau