TRANSFORMATIVE SELF-CARE
NIZAMUDDIN BASTI DELHI & OUTLYING TRANS YAMUNA DELHI
—In partnership with the Hope Project, TSP is on the ground, facilitating trainings and in-person Community Outreach Self-Care and Resiliency programs. TSP serves girls, school children, women, families, health clinic patients, women’s Self-Help groups, vocational trainings both within the Hope Project in Nizamuddin, Delhi, as well as through the mobile health units’ outreach to outlying areas and populations. TSP has one consultant coordinator, 12 trained community facilitators, and one administrative assistant. Six facilitators work in the Nizamuddin home campus area of the Hope Project, as well as in the 600 member Women’s Self-Help Groups, and six facilitators work in the Trans Yamuna areas. There are an estimated 1 million people living in the Trans Yamuna areas. The Hope Project Medical Unit, Support Classes, and Vocational Trainings are working in many of these areas, and TSP Programs are serving these support classes both in the home campus and the outlying areas. All TSP facilitators are teachers for the Hope Project, and conduct the exercises during all of the classes. This is a great step in TSP sustainability in our longtime partnership with the Hope Project.
—TSP has created a private video library of all the TAKE A MINUTE® movement practice, which TSP facilitators can access through their phones. This way, the trained facilitators go over the newest/latest exercises in TAKE A MINUTE® and then implement them for their students. They can also use the library to refresh their memories of earlier exercises. Each quarter, Hope Project sees several thousand students of all ages.




STORIES / A Hope Project Day
—Training session with Shaheen, head Trainer of the TSP Self-Care work. She is a teacher in the school, and leads the assembly programs of exercises for girls and boys several times a week, as well as visiting all the KG (kindergarten) classes. She is amazing. We have worked together for many years, and she knows all the exercises, including successfully using the movements with sounds that I created for the smaller children.
—Home visit with Facilitator Parveen from the Social Work department and medical and community worker: We visited the home of a woman who had previously come to the sessions. She asked Parveen to bring me to her house, as she was suffering from a frozen shoulder. I reminded Parveen and the women that I am not a doctor or a physical therapist. Her two college-aged children were there, and translated for me. I was able to share with her a few practices that gave her some ease. She is seeing a physical therapist, and our movement practices went well with what she is already doing. Something I notice often in every dimension of this work is the way people enjoy themselves, have a laugh, and that in itself opens the heart-door to relief.
—Women’s Self Help Groups (SHG) are led by Facilitator Kariman. Today we saw two different groups of women. They try to come ‘on time’ yet there are so many responsibilities that they come as/when they can. Kariman led the groups, and she is really doing very well. I added on afterwards. The women loved it. Some had been before, some do their own exercises, and some were there for the first time. Like the session at the Ladies Park, the women seem to come when they can, so I ended up re-leading the exercises about three times! I would finish, and then a new group would arrive just as we were finishing. They were so disappointed that we were finishing, that I was compelled to restart!
—Trans Yamuna area, Seelampur. I called Asha on the way, and Beauty Culture teacher and TSP Facilitator Meenakshi came out of class to meet me on the road and accompany me to the class. This is an area where not many, if any, foreigners come. Since I am there under the auspices and partnership with the Hope Project, it works best if someone from the area accompanies me to and from the car. It was the first time that I was there without Asha, our Consultant and Director of the Hope/TSP programs. Me and my pidgeon-Hindi had to suffice. It does give the students a good laugh, and they actually do understand me most of the time! I saw a combined class of the Cutting and Tailoring students with the Beauty Culture students. Beauty Culture is a course that includes hair, nails, make up, and skin. After graduating from these six-month courses of Tailoring and Beauty Skills, the young women go out and find jobs in these fields. A lot of the exercises I am using in the TSP/Hope Train the Trainer Program are created for use in small spaces. There were about 30 students/young women sitting, standing, and moving very close together. For the first part, Meenakshi led the students. She did such a beautiful presentation with them. The feedback is that the videos I made really helped everyone. I can see the difference in all of their sessions. Then Gulshan, the first trained Facilitator of the Trans Yamuna area, led a few exercises. I showed one of the hand Energy Gems, and added a second part. Everyone loved it, and it brought some kind of closure for them in the exercise, so I will put it in the new exercise video I will make for all the Hope Facilitators.









