Tuesday, April 29, 2014

Voila! Bakery As Treatment Modality

I don’t  know if you have ever felt attracted to a bakery shop,  just by the aroma of hot,  sizzling bakery inside. The smell wafting in the air makes me stop my car outside a biscuit factory. I used to wait for a bakery shop to open in the cold winter days on the streets of  Manhatten for a freshly baked croissant and a cup of piping  hot coffee. I personally think that there is nothing like oven baked, fresh bakery.

Shafa Home managed to realize its decade old dream, by setting up their own bakery this month in April 2014.It was by the grace of almighty and pure coincidence that Mr. Ranjan happened to meet an experienced chef and faculty of one of the prestigious hotel management institute of Delhi.
                    Their conversation led to the idea of setting up our own bakery. Mr. Satish, the chef gave his consent to provide his voluntary services and impart his knowledge to our residents and staff. We immediately took up this opportunity and it was decided that a core group of staff members will initially attend the “Training Of Trainee” workshop and then later on transfer their skills to the residents from time to time.                                              This way the learnt skills would always stay with the core group and they in turn could transfer it to the floating population of residents.
 
This endeavour would fulfill different aims at the same time:
                                                                (a) All our residents could get a chance to relish and enjoy fresh bakery in different forms of cakes, bread, patties, muffins and biscuits etc.                                                          (b)               Later on few residents can use these skills as a part of their income generation  capacity building.
   (c)                Residents would involve  themselves  learning and engaging in some positive skills. They could easily utilize their time in similar positive activities. This was kind of providing them with alternate opinions when they are not indulging with alcohol/drugs.
   (d)               All achievements lead to gathering self worth which finally results in earning enhanced self-confidence.

Although this project is still in its infancy, due to paucity of funds. Till now we have invested around Rs.1 lakh (Rupees One lakh only). More money will be needed to strengthen this concept. God will send his help, we have a firm belief about it.


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Friday, April 4, 2014

AMBUJ (TRAINEE PSYCHOLOGIST) shared his experiences in Shafa….

My time here at Shafa Home has been very enriching. What I started as my course requirement went on to become a valuable experience for me.

              My internship was for around one month, first week was for observation, which was really intense and kind of eye opener for me. Then I started taking case histories, but during this course, I committed a mistake, I started building some kind of an emotional
bond with the residents. In some ways, I started feeling sorry for them. I learnt not to create any emotional bonds with my clients. A big lesson for me. Also I developed interviewing skills, though with constant guidance and support from all the staff present in Shafa.


                      Through various psychological tests example SCT, MAST, Sentence Completion, ASI etc. I was able to gather information on every client in my case-load about what is going on in his mind, about his feelings in treatment, about his expectations from treatment and what he has gone through.
                 Staff at Shafa has been very helpful; they were just like guides and elder brothers to me. I do not know whether I took them as seriously as they took me. At times I felt helpless, hopeless in taking case history and conducting tests (How to help client, relieve their pain, sufferings…). But later came to know about the role of a counselor, that he can’t be a magician. There was so much to learn in sessions.

I do not know whether I helped my clients or not, but I really felt touched by them. It has been like a second family now.

                Like all other good thing Internship is also coming to end. Thank You all at Shafa Home for your support, especially Director Sir for granting me this opportunity…


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