Find Sankalp on Facebook Check out Sankalp on Youtube
 

Category Archive: Client Stories


Stories of Recovery: Ashok Ramakrishna

by Ashok Ramakrishna

I was staying in the area around Metro cinema in Mumbai along with a friend. I started noticing big changes in his friend. I stopped using drugs and started having a bath daily, putting on clean clothes, going for meetings etc.

After a few days of coming to the center, I was told to go and have a haircut. After having the haircut when I came back to Sankalp, the staff nurse, told me that I looked like a hero. This was the first time that someone had commented that I looked good. I felt so good that tears started flowing down my cheeks. That evening I went to the market and bought a pair of shirts & trousers for Rs.20/-. Then I went to the meeting in the evening wearing the new clothes. Many commented that I looked a changed man after having a haircut and wearing new clothes.

I started staying in a rented place at Colaba. I liked this disciplined form of life. I started feeling ashamed of rag picking in full glare of the public. I started getting up at 4 in the morning and by 6 in the morning my job was over for the day. Nobody could see me at those wee hours of the morning and I continued making money by rag picking.

The next stage of my life was when I got the job of a turner/fitter at Nalanda Industries, Andheri. I started drawing the princely sum of Rs.1000/-. I worked here for sometime and then joined PM Gymkhana at Colaba, washing dishes, and later joined a canteen.

I like working in food related industries. He sends me to fetch huge amounts varying from Rs.25000/- to Rs.50000/- from debtors. People come to me with their problems.

From being a drug user to someone who helps others to rid themselves of the drug habit-my life has come a full circle and I thank Sankalp for initiating this change in me.

Stories of Recovery: Mohammed Firoz

Mohammed Firoz, hailing from Dharbanga, Bihar, might have reached Mumbai when he was 12-13 years old. He was in Delhi for some time, getting trained and earning in ‘zhari’ work. He was getting Rs.70/-a day, but somebody told him that in Mumbai they pay high wages for the same work. He needs that as he was the eldest of the three siblings and there is also a step mother, apart from mother, back at home and father stay separately, doesn’t give money at home. It took him 2 years to get trained and earn at that level.

He was used to smoking, but with the new friends in Mumbai he got into ganja. It helped him to get away from the thoughts of home as well as the pain from the daily chores. His friends were seriously into brown sugar, but he refused for some time. Eventually he also got into the habit and even went into injecting.

Family extended help, sent him for treatment, but he was not ready. Gradually the deterioration started, lost the job, he was into petty theft, chain snatching etc. He still remembers the day he was caught red-handed and beaten by the public. Once he was taken into custody and he slept for hours. Then they sent him to Arthur Rd Jail.

Soon he was back on street and somebody introduced him to Sankalp. After some days the staff put him onto OST. He might have had it for little over than three months and suddenly family came down and took him home. His sister was getting married and he stayed back. In six months time he regained some health and family took the first opportunity to get him married. Now he is committed to his wife!!

Today he wants to live honestly, don’t want to hurt anybody, don’t want to put anybody into difficult situation. While using he thought that ‘nasha’ won’t leave him till the last breath and presently he wants to better the life.

Presently he is in Mumbai, thinking of starting his Zari work on his own and including other like himself. But finds it difficult that he doesn’t have enough money and so has decided to work with Sankalp and look for other opportunities until he can fulfill his dream.

Sankalp’s Stories of Recovery: Robin on Stigma

Sankalp’s Stories of Recovery: Shankar on Serving Others

Sankalp’s Stories of Recovery: Raju speaks about A Normal Life

Sankalp’s Stories of Recovery: Chandrikant on Family

Sankalp’s Stories of Recovery: Yatin on Discrimination

Art of Living Workshop

From Sankalp Newsletter, Prasad, Outreach Worker

After months of weekly meetings and not being sure of how to proceed, members of the HIV support group felt that getting an idea of the ‘Art of Living’ may be a way forward in Positive Living. Fourteen of us were present at the Art of Living Workshop conducted at our Support Group Premises at Grant Road. In four days, Meditation, Vajrasan, Pranayam, Bhrastika, and chanting of Omkar and Ram Nam were taught to us. The benefits of value based living and basics of ‘Panchthathva’ (Agni, jal, vayu, dharti and aakash) were explained to help us to turn to a positive way of living.

I tried to live with the principles in the day-to-day life. Gradually I could feel changes in the breathing and felt better day by day. As I slip into the meditation, I forget the existence and fall to a sleeping mode. There are no thoughts or feelings felt at the moment, but a vacuum. As I open eyes, it’s as if I’m waking up from a deep sleep and feel happy for the moment.

I benefited a lot from the workshop. I got over the tobacco chewing habit. Initially I used to feel a sort of headache before Pranayam; however, of late I feel I got a balance over my mind. I feel there is a change in perception to the life, from negativity to positivity. I feel confident now that I can give more to my HIV positive brothers in Sankalp. More than anything, I feel that I have come closer to my trust in God.

Red Ribbon Award Video

Reformed Himself, Helping Others Reform

Article originally posted at Karmayog.org

For several months, he had been concealing from his employers that he was a drug user. Then, when he thought it was impossi ble to veil the truth any longer, he spilled the beans. To his immense surprise, his superiors at Oxfam India perceived his problem with empathy and urged him to seek advocacy from Sevadhan, a drug abuse treatment centre. After being perfectly sobered, he made a fresh beginning by resuming work, at the same job. A few months later, he broke some more bad news to his employers. This time, he was quitting his job for good. To return to Sevadhan, not as a patient this time but as a consultant, to improve the lives of those who were lost, as he had once been, on a terribly dark path.

It has been 25 years now since Eldred Tellis (48) decided to devote his life completely to serve thousands of drug users and substance addicts. Today, he is internationally recognised for his understanding of scientific and psychological techniques used in reforming drug users. Every month, the affable Tellis makes a trip abroad to teach various groups of activists the healing methods he has worked with.

Treatment for substance abusers in India is far more advanced in India than in other Asian countries, he says, explaining how his work has taken him into the homes of drug users as far as Malaysia, Iran, Myanmar, Thailand and Bangladesh.

In Mumbai, Tellis runs his own non-governmental organization, the Sankalp Rehabilitation Trust. He provides services through drop-in centers, where any patient can come to seek medical care. He works with volunteers who reach out in areas, like railway stations, where drug users are expected to be located.

His biggest motto: “Do not coerce the drug user to change his pattern if he does not wish to. Just provide the unconditional help he wants from you and make at least that slight improvement in his life”.

Every volunteer in Sankalp now adheres to this principle. “In every drug user, the level of tolerance, determination and conviction is different. I got completely sobered in three months, somebody might take five years and somebody else might not even wish to alleviate,” justifies Raju Padwekar who supports Tellis as a volunteer for Sankalp.

Tellis is glad that his family has been supportive. “We are very happy with the work he is doing. If his work gives him satisfaction and happiness, what more could we wish for,” says Father Joaquin Tellis, Eldred’s elder brother.

Tellis has also worked in the north-eastern states, a project he feels has made substantial difference to the lives of people there. “They consider me almost like a godfather,” he says. Apparently, when most reformers simply chalk out a development programme for drug users there without ensuring its implementation and leave within a day, Tellis actually stayed there among HIV-positive drug users for over two months.

After returning to Mumbai, he observed that the number of HIV-positive drug users here was almost as high as in the north-east and immediately incorporated in Sankalp special treatment for them.

Recently, Tellis was awarded a fellowship from the Ashoka Foundation. “We award those social entrepreneurs whose innovative techniques have made considerable social change and who can work together as fellows to serve society. Mr Tellis rightly fits into our criteria because of the noble work he has done in the north-east and other areas,” says Devashree Mukherjee, director of Ashoka