On Sunday morning after breakfast a group of us (me, Christine, Peter, Oana, Zuzana and Amam) went on a walking tour of the city. We were met at the hotel by Rudraneel, a home student from the university who's helping with the practical aspects of the residential session, and the tour guide. We walked around the Shaniwar Wada fort, which was really interesting to hear about, then walked into the city. On the way a little girl walked with us for a few minutes begging "Hello Madam", then left as we got closer to a temple to Ganesh. We took our shoes off and went inside the temple: there we had to drink water from our right hand and eat some sugar, then we sat in front of the statue with Ganesh with our eyes closed for a few minutes. It was a really peaceful atmosphere. We visited a second temple, passing through the market on the way, then ended in a museum. After a lunch of chutney sandwiches and a banana, Christine and I went shopping to take things back home - the market was interesting, there was very much a walk-on-the-left system in place and often I got shoved to move forward. So that was an experience. In the evening the six of us plus Abdizarak went to a nearby restaurant for dinner to end a nice day off.
On Monday it was back at university for 9am. We began with a seminar on project planning: by Thursday we're expected to formulate a problem which involves mental health, human rights and policy. I came to the course not knowing what exactly I wanted to look into: a few of us were taken aback that we were expected to know what we want to look into at this early stage. Then we had lectures on the social, economic and health burden of mental illness, and on stigma. We held a debate on stigma: the fictional scenario was that a rehabilitation centre for people discharged from a psychiatric hospital was going to open in our town, so we got to talk over a lot of potential issues from the views of residents and care staff. After lunch a man who cares for his daughter with schizophrenia came to talk to us about the challenges he and his family have faced, then the day ended with a short anti-stigma campaign film run in Europe (I'm fairly sure it was from Albania).
By the end of the day I was quite exhausted. On Tuesday morning we were due to leave the hotel at 4am for a flight to Chennai: I'd planned to sleep, but in the end stayed up all night trying to work on an idea for my project. Having changed my mind 3 times, I eventually felt quite pleased with the one I had by 2.15am. By then I saw little point in going to bed when I'd receive a wake-up call at 3am anyway, so I stayed up until it was time to go on our trip.
On Monday it was back at university for 9am. We began with a seminar on project planning: by Thursday we're expected to formulate a problem which involves mental health, human rights and policy. I came to the course not knowing what exactly I wanted to look into: a few of us were taken aback that we were expected to know what we want to look into at this early stage. Then we had lectures on the social, economic and health burden of mental illness, and on stigma. We held a debate on stigma: the fictional scenario was that a rehabilitation centre for people discharged from a psychiatric hospital was going to open in our town, so we got to talk over a lot of potential issues from the views of residents and care staff. After lunch a man who cares for his daughter with schizophrenia came to talk to us about the challenges he and his family have faced, then the day ended with a short anti-stigma campaign film run in Europe (I'm fairly sure it was from Albania).
By the end of the day I was quite exhausted. On Tuesday morning we were due to leave the hotel at 4am for a flight to Chennai: I'd planned to sleep, but in the end stayed up all night trying to work on an idea for my project. Having changed my mind 3 times, I eventually felt quite pleased with the one I had by 2.15am. By then I saw little point in going to bed when I'd receive a wake-up call at 3am anyway, so I stayed up until it was time to go on our trip.
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