November 29th will be an important day in the city Cochin, Kerala, India. A new structure will open its doors to the community, ready to welcome fifty women with serious mental health problems and offering a mental health center inspired by Basaglia’s values of human connection, a warm welcome, care that comes more from people than from drugs.
A group of women from the DPR in Cochin (photo by Le Parole Ritrovate press office)
Italy played an important role in the realization of this project. And, in particular, three entities: the Dominican Sisters of Santa Maria del Rosario, who also deal with mental health in various regions of the world and who in this case provide the structure; ThatAurora Prato Association which has been promoting volunteering in India since 2007; and it “Words Rediscovered” Movement. which since the early 2000s has sought to spread good mental health practices in Italy and abroad based on the participation and involvement of users, family members, operators and citizens. Thanks to the interaction between these three realities, after years of work and planning, “Casa Rebuild Hope” will be inaugurated at the end of November. It is called that “because this is its main purpose”, he explained psychiatrist Renzo De Stefani, representative of the movement “Le Parole Ritrovate”. “The new mental health center will be organized like existing quality centers in Italy, oriented towards recovery. Its basic principles are: a warm welcome to restore confidence and hope to those who suffer; listening, support and involvement of family members; real-time response to crises, avoiding hospitalization as much as possible.”
House in Cochin (photo by Le Parole Ritrovate press office)
From this perspective, an important feature of the new Cochin Mental Health Center is home support, which is currently almost non-existent in India, which allows users to be followed even at home by trained staff. Within the Center there will be a psychiatrist, a psychiatric nurse, a social worker, two social and health workers, an educator and qualified support staff. A team formed based on the principles and values of “working together”. “The fundamental aspect is the climate that can be created within the DPR,” explained De Stefani. “Also a mental hospital, or any other inadequate building, is a place of death, so the new CSM in Cochin must be a place of life and relationships.”
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