Close Encounter
Freny Mahendra, Director, The Samaritans
Overwhelming depression, anxiety, loneliness, frustration, or just too many problems and a feeling that no one cares may lead a few to contemplate suicide,as the only way out. Can a potential suicidee be dissuaded from ending his life?
Mumbai-based social welfare organisation, `The Samaritans,’ a branch of Befrienders International believes that suicide can be averted if there is a caring person to listen objectively and sympathetically to the individual’s problem. But if such caring people were around, would the question of committing suicide arise? The Samaritans was initiated over 40 years back to help people who are tempted to suicide and to help the mentally and emotionally depressed. The Director of the Samaritans, Mrs. Freny Mahendra has a post graduate degree in medical and psychiatric social work and has worked with this organisation since the last 31 years. She is instrumental in moulding the organisation to its present form. In an interview with Manisha P Srivastava she highlights the services and functioning of the organisation, the challenges in sustaining it and expanding its services further.
Q: What is the aim of your organisation and can you briefly tell us about its work ?
A: Our aim is to reach out to emotionally disturbed people in despair and try to avert their suicidal plans.
We broadly have three services; firstly the phone-in service where mentally distressed people can call over the phone and speak to our volunteers. Secondly we run a day care centre which is involved in rehabilitation of the mentally and emotionally disturbed people. And lastly, we also run an out patient clinic that provides psychiatric care and treatment.
The “Samaritans Sahara Hotline” is a phone-in service for people driven by thoughts of suicide. Our volunteers patiently listen to what the caller has to say without any judgment or criticism. Our volunteers are trained to listen compassionately and address their feelings without indulging in any counselling or providing direct solutions to individual problems.
Our hotline service functions from 3.00 pm to 9.00 pm each day and we have one phone line currently. We receive about 7-8 calls each day and the average length of the call is about half-an-hour.
The day care rehabilitation Unit functions from 10 am to 4 pm each day. On an average 15-20 people come here daily. The day at the unit is structured. The activities of the patients attending this programme include sessions of yoga, daily living skills, arts, crafts, music and also therapeutic group sessions and other such activities. The aim is to rehabilitate these people by enhancing their skills and provide them opportunities to be constructively employed in future.
About 6-7 people come each day for free counselling, medication, group and family counselling to the out patient clinic.
Q: How many volunteers are actively working with your organisation and are they qualified to do so?
A: We have a group of 46 committed volunteers currently working with us and many of these volunteers are highly qualified professionals as well as housewives and retired persons. The only qualities we require a volunteer to have is an ability to listen, be non-judgemental, committed and patient. We have a age-limit and take volunteers who are 21 years and above upto 60 years.
All volunteers are trained over two weekends from 10 am to 6 pm and over 5 evening sessions of three hours each. We have manuals for them to go through and the training includes sessions on how to enhance their listening skills, how to handle different calls and situations and many other aspects to help them volunteer better.
Q: What is profile of the people seeking help from your organisation and broadly what are their problems?
A: The profile differs so do the personal crises but the common thread is the absence of a compassionate person to speak to about their concerns, fears or failures.
We have students calling with issues like failure in exams, relationship issues maybe with parents, brothers or sisters, boyfriends or girlfriends. After the announcement of the S.S.C. results last week (the first public exams of the Maharashtra State Board for class 10 students) we received about 35-40 calls over one weeks time. These calls were from students who had either failed or fared poorly or below their expectations.
We also have people approaching with issues related to alcoholism, homosexuality, sexual harassment, household and martial tussles, work related stress cases, and many other kinds.
Our volunteers make an assessment on the kind of help that may be needed, and if required, refer the cases directly to the Samaritans’ professional staff. In cases where the person needs to be away from the home environment for a few hours, they are directed to the day care centre.
Q: What is the success rate of your organisation? How many people have so far benefited from the services of your organisation?
A: Our success rate is approximately 60 per cent. Though we have case records of all the people we have worked with it would be difficult to say this in terms of absolute numbers. In certain cases a person may be fine after just one visit, another patient may seek our help for a few weeks or months or even a few years.
Q: How do The Samaritans raise funds?
A: Mainly through charity shows, trust donors and corporate and individual donations. We do not get any government aid or funds from our parent organisation. None of the volunteers are paid for their services and the rest of the professional staff are paid very poorly. Raising funds is a gigantic task and due to limited staff this takes away a lot of our professional time. We raise about 1-2 lakh from our charity shows which is organised every few years. We also participate in exhibitions and sell some of the products manufactured by the day care centre people. On an average our monthly expenditure is around Rs. 27,000. This is lower taking into account that the three rooms which we are operating from have been provided free of cost by the Jesuit Priest of Seva Niketan.
Q: Does your organisation promote the teachings of any religious organisation?
A: No, we do not promote any religion. Each caller is left to make his own personal judgements and follow his or her own beliefs.
Q: Who initiated the foundation of such a service?
A: The Samaritans is part of UK-based organisation called Befrienders International. In the early 1950s in London, a 13-year-old orphan girl, terrified by the onset of menstruation and believing that she was bleeding to death, committed suicide. A young rector performing the last rites of this girl felt that her death could have been easily averted. He went on to start a listening service for such people. The Samaritans was thus born in 1953.
Our Mumbai branch began in 1960, with an objective of providing a telephone support service. However, the poor telecommunication infrastructure and inadequate volunteers stalled this project. Instead a clinic-based project was started with an aim to befriending and counselling which continues to this day.
The telephone based helpline was later restarted in 1993 called, `The Samaritans Sahara Hotline’.
The Samaritans now have nine branches across the country at Delhi, Calcutta, Hyderabad, Pondicherry, Chennai, Cochin, Ahmedabad, New Mumbai and Mumbai.
Q: What are the future plans at The Samaritans?
A: The growth of our services is severely hampered by our inability to raise substantial funds and acquire a larger premises. We would like to extend the time of the Sahara Hotline service round-the-clock to make it a 24-hour service.
Samaritans currently operate out of the three rooms provided free of cost to us by a charitable organisation. We start the Hotline service only after the day care services are shut down. Besides, we have only one telephone line, so if it is already engaged we could probably not be available to some other potential suicidee.
Thus, our first priority is to enhance our fund raising capacity so that we can expand our services and hire more professionals and advertise its services extensively both in the print and over visual media.
Address:
The Samaritans
Seva Niketan
1st Floor,
Sir J.J. Road
Byculla,
Mumbai – 4000 08
Tel: +91 (022) 23073451 (Helpline)