TSP Community Self-Care with HOPE PROJECT
TSP trains Hope Project school teachers, community leaders and women’s micro-finance group leaders to facilitate stress-relieving, joyful exercises and self-care tools. In partnership with the Hope Project, TSP reaches thousands of students, patients, women and families through their school, clinic, neighborhood homes and with the Mobile Health Unit serving other impoverished communities in Delhi, India.
TSP traveled with the Mobile Health Unit to the district of Seelampur in 2016, and added outreach to Jafrabad shortly after. Locally known as “villages,” these areas are home to 300,000 or more. We have continued to work with vocational students and their teachers in these large, densely populated districts. Each year, TSP reaches more marginalized areas with the vocational trainers, practicing regular self-care exercises with groups of women and families living in the impoverished, largely Muslim areas located in North East Delhi.
Through TSP/Hope Project facilitation of self-care sessions, including prescriptive exercises for common chronic conditions, marginalized girls and women of these districts who face the most abject poverty and restricted access to resources can find relief, connection and new possibilities for improved wellness.
TAKE A MINUTE® For Palliative Care (formerly RTHEP©) with CANSUPPORT
TSP programs in partnership with CanSupport, Delhi, India, are based on TAKE A MINUTE® For Palliative Care, formerly known as RTHEP©, and trainings created by TSP Founder/Director Zuleikha. We offer direct services to palliative care cancer patients and their families; TAKE A MINUTE® For Palliative Care trainings of the counselors of the Home Care Teams, reaching thousands of cancer patients and their families/caregivers per year; self-care sessions for staff; and nurses’ sessions in CanSupport’s annual foundation courses. TSP’s self-care curriculum is used in 41 nursing colleges in Delhi, India.
CanSupport is currently undertaking a research project with doctors in India on the impact of TSP’s innovative palliative cancer care exercise program, led by Dr. Reena Sharma, Home Care Services. Dr. Ambika Rajvanshi, Chief Executive Officer of CanSupport, and longtime advocate of TAKE A MINUTE® For Palliative Care and Zuleikha’s work at CanSupport, is a leading advisor on the research project, along with Dr. Ravinder Mohan, Knowledge, Training, Education and Research.
TSP Kalpataru / The Wish-Fulfilling Tree with NEW LIGHT
At no point in history have more people been enslaved than women currently are in forced prostitution and sex trafficking. Urmi Basu, founder/director of New Light, Kolkata, India, and Zuleikha collaborated to create a restorative program for trafficked women. Kalpataru is the Sanskrit word for the divine, wish-fulfilling tree of Indian mythology that imparts energy for changing one’s destiny. The purpose of the initiative is to create safe spaces to explore creativity, joy and empowerment, and thereby foster resilience.
The idea of Kalpataru began in 2013, when TSP began working with the mothers of children who are protected and cared for by New Light. These are women who have been trafficked into prostitution. A more comprehensive program with the mothers was undertaken in 2014. The success of the program inspired the decision to bring Kalpataru to other districts in India. In 2016, the program expanded to include women traumatized by “witch-hunts” in the rural area of Jharkand, India.