Our first visit was to their head office in Choolaimedu, northern part of chennai. We met up with Ms.Mirjam; a volunteer with the banyan from the Netherlands. We had a meeting with her, Ms. Madhu Sharan, Director BALM, Ms. Chaitali Shetty and Ms. Gayatri; all of them volunteering with the Banyan.
Myself, Kanagavel, Chandrasekar and Praveen had gone to the meeting. It lasted just over 30 minutes. We introduced ourselves and discussed about the Banyan's activities in Chennai. Mirjam had planned out our schedule for the first week. We were to meet all the facilities of the Banyan and get to see the work they have been doing.
There were 4 places to visit:
Kovalam for the rural outreach program under the Community Mental Health Program (CMPH)
Loyola for the Urban outreach program
K.K Nagar for the Urban outreach program and
Adaikalam, their first residential treatment and care center
First up was our visit to Kovalam to understand their rural CMHP.
