|
|
 |
| |
 |
How you can help | Getting here | On Getting here |
How you can help
Volunteer Listings: Areas Open to Volunteers
| Application Form | Befriend a Resident
|
Share Your Time
It is an ongoing concern to meet the needs of the 380 residents- shelter, food, medical care and medicines, therapies etc. We do our best to manage this with funding and donations.
We invite you to donate or rather ‘share’ your time. What our ladies need more of is interaction with the outside world.
By nature human beings are social creatures. Mental illness strips one away of free activity, healthy social interaction, conscious thought and one becomes alienated to a degree.
The Banyan is avant garde in how it dispels with older models of mental health institutions and strives and succeeds in ‘deinstitutionalizing’ the care facilities. Visitors have often commented on the fact that in some instances it is difficult to distinguish between a resident, a visitor or staff member. That is truly a measure of our success.
To make the lines more blurry between those who are ‘ill’ and those who are ‘well’ and to facilitate rehabilitation, we urge and welcome people to step forward and become a friend to one of the residents.
You will be partnered with one of our ladies, and encouraged to spend regular quality time with her. Some suggested activities to engage her with are to simply visit and converse with her, read aloud to her, take her shopping, on a picnic, to the beach, sing together, dance, laugh…you are her friend and companion and she yours. Get to know her, her likes and dislikes, her past and her present, her hopes and dreams.
Please call Vanitha @ 9840964352 or e-mail her @ Vanitha.venkat@thebanyan.org for more information on how you can become a friend to one or more of the Banyan ladies. Please indicate what languages you speak and we can match you with the appropriate resident.
You may just find that you get just as much out of the experience as the residents!
“A smile costs nothing but gives much. It enriches those who receive without making poorer those who give. It takes but a moment, but the memory of it sometimes lasts forever." -Author Unknown
|
|
|
|
| |
|
|
|
