Be the change...

Dear Friends
Change is the only constant! And often it works as a tonic! It forces us to stop and ask, what are our priorities and which way are we heading?
We had some quick restructuring recently. The core group has been reconstituted and it consists of four old timers: JP, Harish, Virendra and sachin (Coordinator).

Golkonda to Guangzhou!

Golkonda to Guangzhou!

And back: Journey of a seeker..

Dhruv Gupta was born in Hyderabad yet left India at the ripe age of 10 months! He lived his early years in Bangkok, Manila, Hong Kong. It was in Hong Kong in grade 3 where he first began to notice his stammer. Then, he moved again to Kobe in Japan where stammering began to control period of his life in the classroom - while raising his hand to answer question and talking to friends. However, he always tried his best to focus on school work and did very well in school. Over the school years, he tried everything he could to avoid stammering - not raising his hand in class, switching words, avoiding talking - which were socially and academically hurtful decisions. In Grade 8, he decided to challenge himself by signing up for a speech class. The class was probably the toughest class for him, and he remembers feeling hurt after one speech and making a promise to himself that he will do all he can to help other people who stammer - no one should ever go through the pain that he is going through. Keep in mind he still had not meant anyone who stammered and did not even really know what to call this different way of speaking.

He received speech therapy in Mumbai one summer which probably changed his life. The speech therapist suggested that the main problem was speaking too fast and that if Dhruv wanted he could speak fluently. This led to a strongly incorrect self-belief that stammering is wrong, and that it his fault that he is still stammering. This pushed Dhruv to hide his stammering even more and try every method possible to speak ‘fluently’.

At the end of 10th grade, Dhruv moved to Guangzhou, China, where he tried to have a fresh start. He believed that nobody here knew he stammered, so he would just try his best to hide it. He would try to speak fast so as to get all words out, speak when he knew he could be ‘fluent’, change words and avoid situations. This worked for him for awhile, and he soon made a new group of friends. However, avoiding situations played on his self-confidence and belief system that there were somethings he couldn’t do.

He graduated and attended the University of Illinois at Urbana-Champaign. Here he continued to hide his stammering and do all he could to prove that he was ‘fluent’ & confident. He soon made a group of friends who stuck with him throughout his university life. After a fun-filled freshman year, he began to feel the pressure of classes and specifically class-room presentations. He did all he could to avoid presentations & group projects but there were some projects he just could not avoid. He decided to take a speech class in his second semester of sophomore year. He had a tough time in the class and found it difficult again to give speeches. Still at this point, he had not met anyone else who stammered, so he believed he was the only one with this problem and he still could not specifically name it. He had no clue why he would get stuck on some words as he did.

He went through a very rough path his sophomore year into this junior year where he felt like he wasn’t good enough. He became very reserved and would hardly speak to his roommates. Everyone saw that he had changed, but he did not share with anyone expect one very close friend, what he was going through. All his friends thought that maybe he didn’t like them anymore or his personality had changed into being a rude person as he was secretly afraid to speak in front of them.

In junior year, he met a friend who he saw had a similar difficulty while speaking. He would block on a certain word. He instantly felt a connection with this person and they became life-long friends. He tried to attend speech therapy at the University of Illinois and went to a group session. However, after attending just the one group session he rejected the idea of returning harnessing a self-belief that he did not have the same problem as them.

In his senior year, he scrambled to attend career fairs and attend job interviews. However, partially because of the economic downturn in 2009 and his chosen major of Corporate Finance, and his self-belief that he was unable/not good enough to work anywhere - he found it hard to find a job.

He returned home in May 2009 after graduating with a B.S. in Finance, and began to search for a job in Guangzhou, China. At this time, his father had opened up a Vaastu, an Indian restaurant in Guangzhou. He had helped with the design and construction of the restaurant during his summer vacation in 2008. His father was having troubles with their then manager and asked Dhruv if he would like to join in the business. Dhruv at first hesitated, as this was not his dream (although at that point he wasn’t very clear of his dream) yet after considering it he felt he would feel proud to help his father. He joined Vaastu at the General Manager in July 2009 and underwent 1 month of training under the GM who was about to leave. From August ’09 - March ’11 he put his heart into the restaurant and it won Guangzhou’s Best Indian Restaurant award in 2009 & 2010. However, in March 2011 the restaurant was forced to shut down because the Chinese landlord had decided to reinterpret the contract and they began a legal battle.

Dhruv was convinced that he had to open Vaastu again as soon possible. After it became clear that the restaurant in it’s current location would be unable to open, he began to search for new restaurant venues. In June 2011 he found a new venue, and by mid-August 2011 the new restaurant opened. It was a smaller venue, but he tried to retain the Vaastu characteristic through decoration and quality service & food. The restaurant ran from August ‘11 - July ’13 and again won Guangzhou’s Best Indian Restaurant award in 2012.

Towards the end of 2012 he was having difficulties with his speech, as he had been having throughout the years being in the service business, and he decided to finally Google to find an answer. In January ’13 he attended an intensive speech therapy program in New York. In this program he did desensitization activities, that helped make him more comfortable with his stammering, like voluntary stammering and self-advertising. Then he learned tools like light-contact prolongation, cancellations, pull-outs, and planning what tool to use in your sentence to help make him feel more in control of his stammering. This program helped me feel like he was in control of his speech, which helped him realize that he was in control of his life.

He decided that he wanted to pursue passions beyond business, particularly in food security. He had seen the grotesque amount of food being wasted everyday in the restaurant and learned that more people were dying each day of hunger than any other disease. He decided to dedicate his life to working on food security issues. He sold the restaurant in July ’13, and moved to Mumbai.

His original plan was to attend graduate school and do a Master’s program in New York in Food Policy. However, after a conversation with a dean at his dream school, he realized he should get some experience first. During this time he began to work with the Postharvest Education Foundation, a non-profit organization dedicated to reducing food loss. Through the organization he got a chance to attend a United Nations Food & Agricultural Organization conference in Rome, Italy in December 2013. This opened his eyes to type of work being done in the field. Most importantly, he learned it wasn’t a food loss or food waste issue, but more an economic issue. In big cities, there is enough distribution of food, however, people cannot afford to purchase food. Therefore, he learned the issue is rather economic policy, job creation, socioeconomic balance issues.

While in Mumbai he joined TISA. He attended a self-help group in Mumbai and was grateful to meet other people in Mumbai who stammered. He then attended his first TISA National Conference in October 2013 and was ecstatic to have met so many people who stammered from all over the country. He felt part of a long-lost family and was eating parathas in Delhi’s paratha-vali-gali like a Delhite in no time.

After returning from the NC, he got more involved with the SHG and decided to search for a permanent venue where they could meet. Through a fellow TISA member Gaurav Dubey, currently Mumbai SHG president, who found the YMCA Ghatkopar, he approached them and sealed a deal to use the YMCA venue for a year at no cost. Then he worked on structuring the SHG agenda to merge stammering self-help with the Toastmaster's organized format. This resulted in a weekly meeting with extempore speeches, prepared speeches and a fun learning session. The design of the format was finalized after consultation with Harish Usgaonker, leader of the Goa SHG and Dr. Sachin.

Through his connections at Bombay Connect, information on stammering and TISA was published in Mumbai Mid-Day (http://www.mid-day.com/articles/get-vocal-about-stammering/15102075 ), a local newspaper read by over 40% of the city’s population. This was a huge win for stammering awareness in Mumbai and India. Further, many people who stammer saw the article and contacted Dhruv to attend the SHG meetings. This helped surge the growth of the SHG.

Dhruv decided he would dedicate his life to helping people who stammer. He researched online and found several organizations that work exclusively to help children, teenagers and adults who stammer. He decided to work with them to understand what programs they offer and how he can bring such programs back to India. In June 2014 he traveled to the US to learn about these programs, primarily the Stuttering Association for the Young, the American Institute for Stuttering and the National Stuttering Association. He is excited to be back in India and apply his learnings from the west with the Indian philosophy that everything we need to know is already inside us, we just need the right perspective and a caring community to discover it.

Core group expansion

TISA is happy to share that Amit Kushwaha, Virendra Shirse and Dhruv Gupta have agreed to join the core group. We welcome them and congratulate them for the initiatives they have taken and the good work they have been doing. We hope that we will have their inputs and counsel for a long long time to come.

Table topics

Once Ramakrishna Paramhamsa asked young Narendra: what is your ambition? What do you want to achieve in life?

Narendranath replied: I want to get established in Samadhi for days altogether; Surfacing once in 3-4 days, just to eat a little and then be lost again in the bliss of samadhi!”

To his great surprise, his teacher reacted quite unexpectedly: What? I thought you will be like a Banyan tree, sheltering many tired travelers. But all you seem to care is your own Samadhi- just like small minded worldly people!..

Narendranath was a great disciple of a great teacher; he understood the message- and eventually became the Banyan tree, known today as Swami Vivekanand. We, Indians, dont tire of quoting and re-quoting him, because he really gave us our self-esteem, when we as a nation were down and out, under centuries of colonial rule.

I was reminded of this incident while reading the comments to a debate on TM on this blog sometime back. Fortunately, everyone was in agreement on one point: TM is not for everyone. This is true for every organization, including TISA. There is an “Ideal” audience for every organization. And this ideal audience is going to differ from organization to organization. Even in America, where TM started in 1924 and has branches all over, National Stuttering Association (NSA) was started in 1977 and is doing very well- and has been described as the largest self-help organization. Same goes for England. I leave the interpretation to discerning readers.

I as a counselor have recommended TM to SOME people; But I have also recommended Martial arts, Classical Vocal music, reading stories to blind children, volunteering in slums, Bungee jumping, solo-trekking, Eckhart Tolle, Vipassana, Brahmavidya, meditation, broad reading, writing on blog, voluntary stuttering etc. to MANY people, based on their needs at a particular point in life. Above all, I have recommended & practiced Acceptance.

But the “table topic” for today is: are YOU going to be a banyan tree? or seek just your “private” salvation? Yes, that is the big question. Any speakers? Or writers? Please leave comments- and I assure you no marks will be deducted for spelling / grammar mistakes or "Aah, ooh, err" etc. :-)

Spirit moves on..

It is with some sadness, we reproduce this communication from Jim CAROOPEN, Mauritius; I hope we will learn something from this and brace ourselves for the marathon, so that the spirit of Friends 4 Fluency carries on in Asia:

Mauritius: Friends 4 Fluency announces its winding up

Dear friends,

I am writing to inform you that during a general assembly held on 27^th June 2010, the members of Friends 4 Fluency have decided by six votes for and one vote against to put an end to the activities of the self-help group, and to proceed with its winding up.

It is with regret that we announce this decision, but at the same time, it is a well-thought and concerted decision that has been reached after a frank and open discussion. We have taken into account both the undisputable requirement to maintain on the island an organisation that could provide information and support with regard to stuttering, but also the motivation and availability of each one of us to take responsibility for this work. In very simple terms, we found that we shared a common desire to continue to work for the well-being of persons who stutter in Mauritius, but at an individual level, no one of us was ready to get involved within the organisation in a sustainable manner.

It should be said that the discussions were very animated, but at the end we reached a decision that reflected our situation in a honest manner and with which everyone was happy. In any case, however, we could not escape the fact that in some way we were setting aside the hope that Anne-Marie Simon had to see our group develop into a full-fledged organisation for persons who stutter in Mauritius, i.e. one that is widely recognised and that can bring PWS, parents, SLPs and government authorities to work together. Indeed, one of the underlying objectives of our intensive therapy week of March 2008 was to prepare us to undertake this kind of responsibility in the future – but regretfully it is clear that we have now forfeited our rights to lead this project.

As far as I am concerned, I had both the motivation and the time to continue my involvement within Friends 4 Fluency, but I felt it was important that I leave the lead and the responsibility of new projects to other members of the group. Indeed, I had taken the initiative for a lot of projects of the group since its creation, and I am convinced that no group whatsoever can be sustainable if it is built around one single person. Moreover, it was according to this line of thought that a new organisational structure for was set up in June 2009, and a managing committee of three persons was elected. Their main role was to lead Friends 4 Fluency into the future. But during our general assembly on 27^th June 2010, most of the members of the group expressed their lack of motivation to be involved anymore within the group. From that time on, it was clear in our heads that the Fluency Initiative had reached an end, and we rather agreed on how we wanted to proceed with the winding up.

Just to recall, the Fluency Initiative in Mauritius started in September 2005, following my unexpected meeting with Mark Irwin, who was at that time the president of the International Stuttering Association. The unsettling discussions that took place during that meeting ultimately lead to the creation of a self-help group for persons who stutter, the first one in Mauritius, which attracted more and more members, and eventually became a registered association, before reverting back to being a self-help group under the name of Friends 4 Fluency. The Fluency Initiative has contributed to bring about many positive improvements for persons who stutter all over the island. The self-help groups that were regularly held between 2005 to 2009 have provided PWS with the opportunity to meet other persons sharing the same situation, to discuss freely about stuttering, to learn about stuttering and to benefit from the expertise of Anne-Marie Simon who came twice to Mauritius to participate in a stuttering awareness campaign in 2007, and to deliver an intensive therapy session in 2008. As an attachment to this note, we are sending our souvenir album, which regroups a few photos of some memorable events of the Fluency Initiative.

Before concluding this note, I would like to briefly remind how far this whole adventure has been a defining moment in my life, and has helped me achieve both personal and professional development. The encounter with Mark has been a decisive element, in that it prompted me to adopt a new approach to my stuttering. At the very right time, Mark said the right words that pushed me to do those simple things that lead me to regain self-confidence. These first steps were overwhelming and prompted me to go further ahead, and eventually to make a second important meeting, this time with Anne-Marie Simon. I have learned and received so much from Anne-Marie! But what I keep as being more precious are her friendship, her openness and the comfort of knowing that during harsh times, she has been present to take my defence. Between these two heroes of my life, there are of course a lot and a lot of friends, parents, SLPs and persons from diverse fields that have supported me, guided me, and enriched my life in an incredible manner.

On behalf of all the members of Friends 4 Fluency, I would like to convey a big thank you to all the persons who have participated to our exciting adventure in one way or another; a big thank you to those who were present on the first day, and to those who were present on the last day; a big thank you to all parents, friends, SLPs who have been here to encourage us in our journey, to all the persons who have provided us with a place to meet, to journalists and bloggers who have help us spread our messages; and last but not least, a very big thank you to all our friends abroad for their support and caring attention to us, all through this venture. There are so many of them that I would prefer not to cite any name, by fear of missing out someone. But I would nonetheless like to say a special thank you to Joseph Lukong, who is the one who had the marvellous idea of putting me in contact with Mark!

So, that all folks! Here ends Friends 4 Fluency!

Jim CAROOPEN

18^th July 2010

Meeting Keith in Delhi

I met Keith in Delhi today. We went to Akshardham temple. We talked about a variety of things- stammering ofcourse-but not limited to it. Then, we had lunch at Wimpy in CP. Deepak Sanothra joined us. We talked and talked. Keith is very good at providing alternative readings of the given situation. Lateral thinking skills. This is very much needed to guide an evolving movement dealing with an issue which is difficult to undersatnd- even for people who have dealt with it all their life. He shared his experinces and insights from Toastmaster and from his days of regular 9-5 job in UK.

TISA SHGs- Guiding principles

Dear All
Here are a few guiding principles for TISA Self help groups
1. TISA SHG is for help ourselves and each other. We do not promote
any particular therapy, therapist, devices, treatment, courses or any
other commercial interest or initiative.
2. We promote acceptance, understanding and practical help for PWS,
because it is well established that there is no "cure" for stammering.
It is a chronic condition and only PWS can provide long term support to each other.
3. We accept everyone with no discrimination, based on severity of
speech difficulties, caste, community, other disabilities, gender,
socio-economic status etc. We will create atmosphere where women and
children will be able to participate actively and freely.
4. TISA local coordinator will preside over all the meetings and
issues and will be final authority on all matters regarding the
SHG. She or he will decide the agenda, circulate it and will ensure
that participants stick to it in an efficient manner.
sachin