This article comes from Guidepoints News from NADA Spring 2021 Issue.
Year 2020 is important for Nada India for two reasons.
First, this was the year Nada India completed 20 years of
its existence. It was Dr. Michael O. Smith who introduced
me to the word nada, a Spanish word meaning nothing. In
Hindi, nada means primordial sound. During his numerous
visits to India, we discussed how a patient is smarter
than a therapist, and a virus is smarter than the vaccine,
and students are smarter than the teacher – they all
change faster than our interventions. This causes a gap
and increases the service barriers. Thus, the policy and
program focus needs to shift from disease control and
management to primordial prevention and wellbeing. And
so, Dr. Smith invited me to set up Nada India Foundation
to promote barrier-free drug rehabilitation services and
community wellness for behavioral health.
Secondly, 2020 was the year of the Covid-19 pandemic
that helped all of us realize nothingness in close quarters.
The Nada India team was conducting My Community and
I workshops at Delhi University colleges when we asked
students to write about their “River of Life” because
health is not an episode but a series of episodes.
All episodes of life leave us with a sense of “zilch” meaning
“the beginning.” Covid-19 gave us an opportunity to listen and be connected within us – it is another episode
of wellbeing obliged to health in my River of Life. It was
a coincidence that the day after we finished our workshop
on Emotional-CPR in Delhi, a nationwide lockdown was
announced and we all started working online.
We have long admired the work of Nada India as a shining example of what NADA’s outreach is all about. Without question, Suneel and Pallavi Vatsyayan are the brilliant force and tireless energy making the great good of establishing the NADA protocol in India possible.NonCommunicable Diseases (NCDs) are the endemic challenge of modern bio-medicine and behavioral and mental healthcare. Suneel and Pallavi get it. Pan-diagnostic and trans-symptomatic efficacy and adaptability are hallmarks of the NADA protocol and a valuable tool in addressing NCDs. They get that too.I am confident that NADA and Nada India will continue a rich intellectual, technical and collegial relationship. ~ Ken “Khensu” Carter, NADA President:
As a professional social worker and life coach, I found
that therapy is a complicated process. I realized that peer
learning, Emotional CPR and the NADA protocol are
as simple as offering a glass of water. This is all needed
during the pandemic, and the Nada team connected with
young people virtually and emotionally at Qi level. #Covid-19 and lockdown situations have worsened
everyone’s lifestyle and habits, especially youth. Their
lifestyle pattern has become more sedentary, compiled
with increased intake of junk food and beverages. Nada
India noticed the harmful ways in which Big Alcohol,
Tobacco and Food companies exploited this pandemic
situation to sell their products.
The availability and accessibility of healthcare at times of
Covid-19 is also a major challenge for the people living
with noncommunicable diseases (NCDs), including heart
disease, stroke, cancer, diabetes and chronic lung disease.
The National Youth Conclave 2020, organized
by Nada India, underlined the growing scarcity
of available social workers. Nada India has been
running wellness campaigns since 2016 with
the
National Association of Professional SocialWorkers in India, and we have observed that their
role is crucial in bridging the gap in the shortfall of
the healthcare workforce and quality social work
education.
Moreover, this gap can also be filled by training
youth and young adults to be peer educators/
supporters and caregivers. In 2016, on one of Dr.
Smith’s trips to India, he wrote about the peer
program. “Peer counselors are supposed to help
their clients prevent and cope with a number of
non-communicable diseases such as alcohol abuse,
tobacco use, obesity, diabetes, and high blood pressure.
This is one of biggest struggles for food integrity in our
world. I am pleased this is part of NADA’s challenge and
response.
“The trainees’ assignment was to interview five local families
about their food habits. These interviews were clearly
intended to start an on-going conversation and awareness
about buying, cooking and eating. This subtle ongoing
reality extends to alcohol, tobacco and other problems.
“First, Pallavi taught the primary teacher who is a young
psychologist from another state in India. This teacher
then teaches the many peer counselors in each of
several villages, eventually watching their
interviews of
family leaders.
The teacher
often stays
overnight in
the villages
to facilitate
the learning,
trusting, and changing process.
One
further assignment of the peer counselors is to identify
and teach junior peer counselors. Thus, change is ongoing and multi-generational. And, as is necessary for
quality results, women are included at all levels and in all
ways.
“People properly learn to learn and learn to teach the
basic issues. Quite different than the technique of training
a special cadre of young people who are made to feel
elite and different from the local community. Here their
connection with the village and their ability to work for
a growing wisdom and change in their village. The peer
counselors are also taught to place magnetic ear beads on
community members and younger students. Basic to their
role is helping young people handle the risks of substance
abuse and other co-active difficult behavior.”
We have featured one of our Nada Good Health Fellows
and Youth Catalyst, Mincy Lakhmani, on the cover of
our 2020 annual report. The gesture is a tribute to all the
young people like her who have been the strength of our
work. She rose to become a Peer Leader and Good Health
Champion with us, and she now works in her native place
in Ayodhya, Uttar Pradesh, with the twin objectives of
conserving nature and healing the living beings around her
by reaching out to the needy ones. Her work represents
the continued focus of Nada India Foundation in the
new decade – “One Health One World.” Nada India gives thanks to Dr. Smith, Ruth, Dr. Ken,
Jo Ann, Sara and many more for being part of our
support system. Dr. Smith created communities of hope
by inspiring and equipping women and children to be
healthy in India. Ear acupuncture in India has become synonymous with Dr. Smith. People whosoever met him earlier always
looked forward to meet him again and again – whether
senior officers of the
Border Security Force, Beggar Home
Delhi Government, National Institute of Social Defense,
Delhi Psychiatric Society and hundreds of counselors,
peer educators whose lives were touched by his holy
presence and dynamic Qi. Poor children, adolescent
girls and women of Chattarpur village expressed their
gratitude for his generous support to their education and
vocational programs. We continue to work with young
people who were close to Dr. Smith’s heart.
I am confident that the youth-led Nada Young India
Network is ready to bring up the stories of young health
advocates across India and amplify the voices of people
living with NCDs. The stories of young health advocates
have already set the tone of the narrative by involving the
young people in partnership with adults meaningfully at
all levels with a whole society approach, “Good Health in
All Policies.”
