Objects

Our aims and activities reflect our unique approach of meeting the challenges of mental illness and poverty both through developing mental healthcare and through the simple human support of friendship and solidarity.

Our objects (aims) as they appear in our constitution are:

(1) To relieve the needs of children and adults who have mental illness, including their families and carers, particularly but not exclusively, living in Antara, North East India...

 ...and to raise awareness of the issues faced by people living with mental illness.
 
(2) To research or support research into mental illness and disseminate the useful results to the public.

Activities

Friends of Antara UK translates its objects into four ways of working with our partner organisation(s). See also Get involved section.

(1) Financial Support

Our financial support is centred around ensuring access to mental health facilities and services for the most disadvantaged affected by mental illness and seeking to relieve the poverty that often results from mental illness  As such we are trying to break the vicious cycle of poverty and mental illness at two points (see also our appeals section).

Projects - Developing and improving facilities.

Antara

• Beds and mattresses for acute (admission) male and female wards.
• Children's Ward - 32 bed ward for intensive treatment and assessment of children with mental illnesses and attending guardian(s).
• Children's Outpatient Dpt - Purpose built facility for outpatient and community support of children with mental illnesses.

Programmes - Targetted services or activities for disadvantaged groups.

Antara

• Safe Motherhood and Child Survival (SMCS) programme - multi-intervention preventative programme for 300 expectant mothers or families and children < 5yrs from below the official poverty line

Ongoing Appeals - Subsidising treatment or reducing barriers to access.

Antara

• Children's Fund - sustainable means of providing highly subsidised or free treatment for children with mental illnesses.

(2) Raising Awareness

Friends of Antara UK seeks to raise awareness in the general public of the UK about:

• Mental illness at a global scale.
• Mental health inequalities.
• Challenges in providing mental healthcare in resource-poor areas.
• The connections between poverty and mental illness.

We do so by:

• Our website.
• Talks and presentations to the public.
• Workshops and talks at conferences of health or social workers.

(3) Direct Support

We believe that all too often the individual stories of those affected by mental illness, particularly those in low-income countries or populations, are ignored. An important part of our support is direct (human) support for those affected by mental illness, their families and carers or health professionals. We do this through:

• Volunteering - sending students or workers in healthcare, social work, psychology or related fields to work with our partner organisation(s).
• Advocacy - representing the views and experiences of patients via our Sounding Board pages of this website.
• A letter exchange - connecting individual patients to pen-pals in the UK, and in some case UK mental health organisations.

(4) Research and Cooperation

There is a chronic shortage of research and evidence on mental health in low-income countries and deprived populations. There are also major deficits in mental health skills and trained workers. We seek to change this situation through:

• Organising or supporting research in collaboration with or by our partner organisations
• Organising medical electives and professional exchanges.
• Creating links to UK academic or clinical institutions working in mental healthcare.