Hope for the hopeless

By Roshan Peiris

Elly Jansen has a serene face like a Madonna and a big heart which has made her embrace and activate services for mental patients, drug addicts, the depressed, stressed and anxious.

Elly is the Founder and Chief Executive officer of Richmond Fellowship International an organisation she started in London in 1959 after having finished a course in Divinity there.

In her home in Amsterdam she studied psychology and opted to work with disturbed children.

Richmond Foundation International provides a residential half-way house for those who are mentally ill. They are not violent, she explained but ones with deep and incomprehensible problems. Families tend to either ignore them or are ashamed of them. There is nothing to be ashamed of.

"Twenty residential patients work in groups and find out for themselves that many have similar problems, even those who are not mentally sick".

"Sharing anxieties and confiding in one another helps," said Elly.

The Richmond Foundation Homes are geared to rehabilitation so that those who leave can fend for themselves in society. Today there are 200 Richmond Foundation houses worldwide and in South Asia: there are Affiliates in India, Pakistan, Bangladesh and Nepal.

Mrs. Jansen came to Sri Lanka with the hope of establishing a Richmond Foundation Affiliate here. Her itinerary was arranged by the Federation of NGO's for mental health and well-being and the Communication Centre for mental health.

Elly said "conditions here are somewhat appalling. There isn't enough finance nor trained personnel to carry out this type of work. There are many places worldwide where there is overcrowding in mental homes. They are badly equipped and wanting in cleanliness".

Elly hopes to start building operations in Sri Lanka in September for a Richmond Foundation Home and complete it by the end of 1998 or the beginning of 1999.

"We will provide professional and therapeutic workers. In Sri Lanka, Britain, Canada, the Netherlands and the European community will help in setting up a Richmond Home.

"I was the sixth in a family of nine children and so I began early to first care for children. I became a nurse as well."

"It is rewarding" she said when we find that psychology and medication can make those who are mentally disturbed once again well. "It is a real boost and one cannot ask for more . Our people prepare for jobs such as typing take part in games, music and sewing."

Minister of Health Siripala de Silva has been supportive of this scheme which respects the individual, even though he or she may be mentally disturbed.

These people are helped to re-enter society through a carefully designed programme of group activities and counselling.

The Richmond projects are financed through co-funding, an arrangement whereby donor agencies meet part of the cost of the project, part being met by the RFI and organisations affiliated to it.

"Grants and donations from Trusts, Industry and Commerce and individual contributions are welcome for helping mentally disturbed members of a community to be whole again and take their place in the community, with pride and as normal human beings," Mrs Jansen said.

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