Friday, February 09, 2007
An Alumni Associaion - making a difference ….
… and Mental Illness addressed – a Myth no more!
It gives me great pleasure to share this info. with you. I got it from a friend who is a faculty at the National Institute of Technology, Warangal (formerly REC Warangal). I received it late Nov. last year.
Here are two wonderful stories of an Alumni Association coming together to help when it was most needed, making such a difference and a positive impact.
I have given some info. about Mindbeautiful.com – an org. that a person I know in Portland has started to address Metal Illness.
My friend wrote thus:
“Dear Ms SrilakshmiI wish to share a few more events/happenings in my domain:
First case: On October 6, 2006 EENADU, the popular Telugu daily carried a news item about the plight of a bright and poor girl student who was suffering from mental depression and had not been able to complete her engineering education from NIT Warangal. Her name is Sasikala. As the newspaper has an e-edition, it was seen by several of our Alumni. This started a flurry of activity with several people offering monetary help, several coming forward to locate her and identify her credentials. The result was that she was shifted from Jammalamadugu, her native place to Rajahmundry, was put up in an Alumni's house and was given the best possible medical treatment. She has now recovered quite well and had visited the college with an assistant to check her academic backlogs. She seems to be determined to complete her course. The feeling of Alumni had gone to such an extent that one of them (an NRI residing in USA) whose child had a similar medical problem and was treated contacted the specialist, brought him to RJY and got this girl Sasikala, admitted. We all are now hoping that the efforts of all these noble souls will bear fruit in her success.
Second case: One of our Alumni's family was shattered in a span of one month. The Alumni's wife passed away due to kidney failure and within a month this Alumni who was working in a steel mill in Raipur passed away due to heart attack leaving their three children who are all in Engineering education, as orphans. Here also our fellow alumni have mobilized a sizeable fund and assured these children that they are not orphans but now children of a larger family THE NITW FAMILY.
With regards,
Dr.N.Subrahmanyam Asst.Professor, Dept.of Electrical Engineering & Faculty In-charge, Alumni AffairsNational Institute of Technology, Warangal (formerly REC Warangal) WARANGAL - 506 004,(A.P) INDIA”
What a coming family and what a coming together at a time of dire need! It’s wonderful to see good things happening around us every day.
On another note, many people suffer from depression and don’t know it. They suffer in silence. I know of one lady, Gayatri Ramprasad, in Portland, Oregon. She turned around her life after experiencing severe mental health issues and deep depression for years. She got excellent support from her husband and children. She started an organization called MindBeautiful (http://www.mindbeautiful.com - a beautiful web site -- the intro quotes are very nice). It's so wonderful to see what a great advocate she has now become and how she’s able to reach out and make a difference. One year, we went on the NAMI (National Alliance for the Mentally Ill) walk that she organized in Portland. Recently, she received an Eli Lily Lifetime Achievement award and quoted "Having survived the devastation of suicidal depression, I am dedicated to serve as a candle in the dark, lighting the way to recovery for others like me."
It gives me great pleasure to share this info. with you. I got it from a friend who is a faculty at the National Institute of Technology, Warangal (formerly REC Warangal). I received it late Nov. last year.
Here are two wonderful stories of an Alumni Association coming together to help when it was most needed, making such a difference and a positive impact.
I have given some info. about Mindbeautiful.com – an org. that a person I know in Portland has started to address Metal Illness.
My friend wrote thus:
“Dear Ms SrilakshmiI wish to share a few more events/happenings in my domain:
First case: On October 6, 2006 EENADU, the popular Telugu daily carried a news item about the plight of a bright and poor girl student who was suffering from mental depression and had not been able to complete her engineering education from NIT Warangal. Her name is Sasikala. As the newspaper has an e-edition, it was seen by several of our Alumni. This started a flurry of activity with several people offering monetary help, several coming forward to locate her and identify her credentials. The result was that she was shifted from Jammalamadugu, her native place to Rajahmundry, was put up in an Alumni's house and was given the best possible medical treatment. She has now recovered quite well and had visited the college with an assistant to check her academic backlogs. She seems to be determined to complete her course. The feeling of Alumni had gone to such an extent that one of them (an NRI residing in USA) whose child had a similar medical problem and was treated contacted the specialist, brought him to RJY and got this girl Sasikala, admitted. We all are now hoping that the efforts of all these noble souls will bear fruit in her success.
Second case: One of our Alumni's family was shattered in a span of one month. The Alumni's wife passed away due to kidney failure and within a month this Alumni who was working in a steel mill in Raipur passed away due to heart attack leaving their three children who are all in Engineering education, as orphans. Here also our fellow alumni have mobilized a sizeable fund and assured these children that they are not orphans but now children of a larger family THE NITW FAMILY.
With regards,
Dr.N.Subrahmanyam Asst.Professor, Dept.of Electrical Engineering & Faculty In-charge, Alumni AffairsNational Institute of Technology, Warangal (formerly REC Warangal) WARANGAL - 506 004,(A.P) INDIA”
What a coming family and what a coming together at a time of dire need! It’s wonderful to see good things happening around us every day.
On another note, many people suffer from depression and don’t know it. They suffer in silence. I know of one lady, Gayatri Ramprasad, in Portland, Oregon. She turned around her life after experiencing severe mental health issues and deep depression for years. She got excellent support from her husband and children. She started an organization called MindBeautiful (http://www.mindbeautiful.com - a beautiful web site -- the intro quotes are very nice). It's so wonderful to see what a great advocate she has now become and how she’s able to reach out and make a difference. One year, we went on the NAMI (National Alliance for the Mentally Ill) walk that she organized in Portland. Recently, she received an Eli Lily Lifetime Achievement award and quoted "Having survived the devastation of suicidal depression, I am dedicated to serve as a candle in the dark, lighting the way to recovery for others like me."
# posted by Sri Renganathan @ 8:23 AM 
