TSP NEWS
INFUSING RESILIENCE
A Bird’s Eye View of Zuleikha and TSP’s Self-care Work with Hope Project, TSP’s Partnering Organization in Delhi, India
“Leading classes for those learning vocational skills. We are learning to take care of the ankles before jumping.” —Zuleikha
February 21, 2023
Today was an absolutely excellent day.
I had a meeting with Dr. Lippy, Director of the Hope Medical Clinic. I thanked her for her willingness to include the Self-Care work in her programs. She thanked me for bringing this work to Hope and training TSP facilitators at Hope so it can be shared. For both of us it is a win-win situation. A very good feeling.
It is amazing to me that after years of doing these programs myself, there are now many trained TSP/Hope Project facilitators. They carry this self-care through the different departments. The TSP/Hope Project team also now includes a core consultant to oversee the different facilitators and an administrative assistant to help collect evaluations and reports. This will help us all a lot!
Weekly classes for women in the Nizamudddin Basti (neighborhood area of 20,000) at the Ladies Park, sessions in the Health Clinic, and groups in women’s homes are now all conducted by a TSP-trained Hope facilitator who is a social worker with the Hope Project Health Clinic.
Hope Medical Clinic Director Dr. Lippy with Zuleikha
“Tea, a special snack, new notebooks and a great meeting with the TSP/Hope facilitators”
Inside the Hope Project Non-Formal School and Kindergarten, students continue to practice our TSP self-care exercises in new ways. The head TSP facilitator at Hope has been inspired to do this work for many years, and understands how to work with large groups. She also visits all the departments and helps each of the facilitators to bring new energy into the works.
A TSP/ Hope Project facilitator in the Hope Computer Lab is practicing self-care with youth and adults, engaging them through fun comments and helping them realize the necessity of getting up from the computer. When I visited, the students attending the computer classes were hilariously surprised from the good effects of a much-needed stretch.
The Basti Women’s Self-Help Groups (SHG), under the umbrella of Hope, help the almost 800 women enrolled to establish their own bank accounts, and make all kinds of trainings available to them. Now, a TSP/Hope facilitator and her assistant are leading TSP Self-Care in these community groups as well as with the women in the vocational training courses.
“Working with a Basti Women’s Self-Help Group today. We tried different things, and almost immediately most of the group were smiling. This is actually one of the signs of relief. You can say it’s a re-charge, or a re-set. Self-Care is to lessen the stress or tension in the body, mind and heart.”
The Hope Mobile Health Unit has always been actively involved in helping TSP self-care reach Northern Delhi communities outside of the Nizamuddin Basti.
This year, five new teachers are training with me. They will lead our TSP Self-Care in vocational and support classes in this region. The “villages” of Zafarabad, Seelampur, and a new one this year, Welcome (pronounced “Velcome”), each consist of 200,000-300,000 people, and Hope is working in each one. We are all very happy about this whole program.
“I see that it is the energy mixed with the exercises that produces the outcome.”
Teachers in the outlying areas engaged in the new training program with Zuleikha
Zuleikha working with a new support class in Welcome, Delhi, India
It is a joy and a testament to our work together that, despite the enormous losses of the last three years, our self-care programs are flourishing where they are needed most. Thank you to the Hope Project, to each person working with this program, and to our generous supporters.
© Zuleikha
A DAY IN THE LIFE OF ZULEIKHA IN THE FIELD with CanSupport, TSP's Partnering Organization in Delhi, India
Visiting Palliative Cancer Patients and Training Counselors
From Zuleikha’s January Notes 2023
“Sharing a shoulder tension relief exercise with a man who has had lung cancer, and is living his life. His house is being prepared for his son’s wedding so we are sitting outside.” —Zuleikha
It has been about two weeks since I arrived in India. I seem to have jumped in with both feet, and full bodied engagement. Since CanSupport India (cansupport.org) is about to do a research project on the works I have developed for palliative cancer patients and their families, I am going out with Home Care Teams and helping the counselors involved in this training, so that when the project begins, everyone doing it will be on the same page.
This involves a lot of strategy. A driver takes me to the area of Delhi where I will work that day. There are 11 districts in Delhi, and CanSupport has offices, daycare, and outpatient clinics in many of these districts. As of 2023, there are more than 32 million people in Delhi. So you can imagine what it might be like to get anywhere. It takes time, and there is usually a lot of traffic.
After I get to the office in the morning to meet the team that I will work with on a given day, I generally go in, we laugh and sometimes do some exercises to get the circulation going, often someone makes tea, and then everyone sets out in cars. The teams consist of a doctor, nurse, counselor and driver. The car has a lot of medicine, sometimes food rations, and everyone has a phone that generally rings most of the time from patients calling to confirm home visits.
“Shrine of a patient, and Counselor Anamika sitting. Anamika is a veteran counselor who knows this work and helps the new counselors to understand how to use our practices.”
Today I went out with a counselor who I trained some years ago, who now travels with new counselors to support them when I am not here. We were accompanied by a wonderful nurse. Nurses in CanSupport can do everything, and counselors can join them. They are wonder-people. As the nurse told me today, “My work is compassion.”
That’s why I love being engaged in this work. We go out into all of it. Today something struck me with a laugh. I arrived at the center in the district called Ghaziabad which is North East Delhi, where there are three teams.
My team mates for the day were wearing an indigo color of blue. I was wearing orange-red. I had thought about wearing blue, and then didn’t. Colors and clothing in India is so whimsical to me—I love seeing how people put patterns and combinations together. And I secretly lamented that I hadn’t chosen that very same color, which had crossed my mind. You know how it is when something makes you want to belong, or be the same. Yet I did not choose that, and had to pick myself up, mentally, and carry on, as they say!
We arrived at the first patient’s house. A girl was sitting on the rooftop where the rooms were, and she was washing all the dishes. She was one of many daughters of the patient. We went into the room where the beautiful patient was. I began to laugh. She and I had the same color of outfit. And guess what? It happened all day long. Every patient we saw was wearing this orange/red color!
“Sharing a series of comforting movements for a woman suffering from after-effects of chemo and some fears. Her husband joins in, very supportive.”
I haven’t been in India since the Pandemic took hold, and have forgotten some things. Today I recalled that this wearing the same color as the patient has happened many times—almost as if it was choreographed. When there is this kind of synchronicity, it adds to the connection. Delight. Of course if it isn’t the same, some connection happens in another way. It just happened this way today, and we all enjoyed it.
I work a lot with girls, women and families in different places on this planet. I often describe it as transformative self-care. It offers a kind of resilience, can be a re-set, and joy often becomes contagious.
When I began working with the Home Care Teams, I met a different kind of climate. The atmosphere with palliative cancer patients can be one of uncertainty, pain, a so-so mind set, often accompanied by the anxiety of family members.
And so out of the necessity to be in some kind of calmness, I found myself jumping off from the resilience exercises into a set of movements that often bring a relaxation feeling. In India we call them Shanti exercises, or the movements that bring a peaceful feeling. Many refer to these practices as relaxation therapy, meaning that a sense of calmness can arise in the midst of the chaos.
“Sharing two different ways to give a kind of self-massage and smooth out the muscles for patient with hip and leg pain post-surgery and chemo. These two exercises bring a smile and some comfort, as well.”
“This woman and her three children and husband live in one room. One child was sleeping. The mother is on the road to a good recovery from surgery and CanSupport visits her often. The nurse and I work standing, as there is no place to sit. An honor to join in some moments of peace, and the children were so curious!”
Though I may often share a similar set of motions with patients, the way it works will evolve differently depending on the feeling and atmosphere of the person, their difficulties, and the family. Many times I like to invite the children or the partners. Like walking into a magic space where even sitting outside on a busy lane, a connection of inner peace arises and everyone has a smile for a moment. Sometimes the pain takes a back seat, and presence is alive.
© Zuleikha
A Self-Care Package for India Nurses
AUGUST, 2021
Made possible by a grant from the
Jonathan & Kathleen Altman Foundation
A Pop-Up Session for Home Care Teams
JUNE 28, 2021
Last weekend I got a Whats App message from my friend in Delhi, India. Her team organizes the Virtual Self-Care Sessions I do through our non-profit service work, The Storydancer Project. She asked if we could do a pop-up session on the weekend. I thought,”WHAT?!” I love our Storydancer Project partnership with this organization, CanSupport. And I miss working together with them. So this has been the next best thing. Of course I answered, “YES!”
You might remember me writing about my relaxation therapeutic works with palliative cancer patients and their families. And now Covid, and the black fungus that is prevalent in India at this time. On the screen I got to see many of the home care teams—doctors, nurses, and counselors. Lots of laughter. Like a positive Re-Charge drink. For me, it was just about dawn, and for them, it was evening. After the session, which was playful, deep, serious and fun, everyone was saying goodbye, feeling Good. That’s what we like!
Letter from Zuleikha on India
MAY 4, 2021
India is in our hearts and on our minds. We are heartbroken for the people and our partners there.
The Storydancer Project (TSP) has been working in India for about 20 years. And today, we have formal partnerships with two important organizations, CanSupport and The Hope Project in Delhi, India, where the pandemic situation is critical, and continuing programs with trafficked women in Kolkata and tribal regions on the border of Bangladesh with New Light in Kolkata.
At CanSupport, the largest palliative home-care program in India, where we have developed self-care trainings, we were told their home care teams are continuing to help the patients at home, but many team members have contracted Covid-19. (cansupport.org)
At the Hope Project, where we have trained TSP facilitators, they are continuing in their work with women, students and families, even during these times. A social worker from the Hope Project said to me, “Zuleikha, no house has been spared.” (hopeproject.nl)
Through New Light, we hear that the trafficked women we work with have been all but forgotten. The people we know running food programs say it’s harder to get food to the women and their families now. (newlightindia.org)
Right now our work on Zoom with our India partners is on temporary hold. We hope that changes soon because our self-care programs have proven time and again to relieve stress and bring hope. We continue our online work with Navajo Nation and nurses on the front line in U.S. and Europe.
Donate today to The Storydancer Project for the programs that continue during this pandemic. Thank you.
—Zuleikha
©Swan Lake Publishing
Nourishment for Frontline Nurses
APRIL 17, 2021
FEBRUARY 24, 2021
The RUMI CONCERT
OCTOBER 5, 2018
“When you do things from your soul, you feel a river moving in you.” — Rumi
