Dear friends,
I would like to take this opportunity to wish you and yourloved ones best wishes for the New Year, and a productive 1999 for WFMH. Following an eventful birthday year with global fiftieth anniversarycelebrations and quickened and broad-based progress in programs and regionaldevelopment, this year holds much promise and possibility for consolidation. To name only a few, 1999 has the Santiago World Congress on the horizon,continuing development of the WFMH long-range planning strategy andsustained momentum with our partners in mental health.
My recent visit to Calcutta, India, to attend the 50thanniversary celebration conference on “Quality of Psychiatric Care in ThirdWorld Countries” at the Institute of Psychiatry in Calcutta has leftme inspired and optimistic about the future. Against the backdrop of thisunique and difficult human environment with its overpopulation, poverty andpollution, rendering the city an ordeal of survival for many, the mentalhealth movement was undaunted, committed and effective. The Instituteof Psychiatry was active in community-based research andimplementation. A large number of local NGOs had formed a Forum for Mental HealthMovement to coordinate their efforts, and the medical students and facultyof the University of Calcutta were seeking support for including mentalhealth training in their professional curriculum.
Dr. Chuni Roy (Canada), Professor Tsutomu Sakuta (Japan), Dr.Eva Gonzalez (Philippines) and I helped to lay plans for thedevelopment of the NGO Forum for Mental Health into a Mental Health Associationpotentially affiliated with WFMH. We also presented Professor Chowdhury ofthe Institute of Psychiatry with the WFMH Award for ExtraordinaryService for the Improvement of Mental Health,* and provided help fordeveloping the medical curriculum at the University of Calcutta by means of anassociation with Maastricht University, the Netherlands.
Under the complex and unforgiving conditions of urbanCalcutta, without funding and with little support, mental health workers have donemuch to alleviate the suffering of the mentally ill and to developappropriate care and service programs. This city, where the work of Nobel prizewinner Mother Teresa is renowned, seemed brimming with saint-likehumanitarian activities in mental health.
It was instructive to see the many layers of society inCalcutta, and heartwarming to meet people engaged in this work, setting anexample to the rest of us. If they can muster the spirit and resources to makea difference under the harsh conditions of the “City of Joy,” therest of us, under relatively more “privileged” conditions, should also beinspired to continue to make a difference in improving world mental health.
Again, best wishes in 1999.
Marten deVries
*Supported by Janssen Cilag-Organon