Voices from the ground..

As a process of internal monitoring and grounds-up learning, we interview people who have been associated with TISA for sometime. Gaurav is one such asset of this community! He has been facilitating Mumbai SHG for quite some time. Many of you may have met him in Khandala NC. His story illustrates a subtle and often ignored truth: TISA only provides an environment: Rest depends on our INITIATIVE…
Without much further ado, let us get on with his valuable feedback (Ed.).

1. Please introduce
yourself…
I am Gaurav Dubey, a pws from Mumbai, currently working as a software engineer
in an IT firm.

2. Was stammering a problem for you? How big?

Yes, Stammering was always
a problem for me, until I stopped viewing it as a problem. Because of
stammering, I had developed an inferiority complex and used to be depressed, which
eventually decreased my self-confidence. Thus I used to talk less and was assumed
as a ‘silent’ fellow in school and college, where I never participated in debates/speaking
activities. Also I had a tough time getting a job for the same reason.

3. How did you try to
help yourself? (ie. before TISA).

My family always supported
and motivated me whenever I used to feel low coz of stammering. The internet also
helped me a lot to learn about stammering and acceptance. I also attended some speech
therapy sessions, but that didn’t help much.

4. How did you come in
contact with self help movement?

Through Yahoo IndianPWS
health group! I got to know about TISA, self-help and Mumbai SHG from this
group.

5. Since when have you
begun taking a more active role in Mumbai SHG?

Mumbai SHG had a
workshop held in January 2014. Post this workshop, I became actively involved
in SHG meetings. And when we had elections again in June, I got elected to core
facilitation team and since then have been actively facilitating SHG meets.

When I began regularly
attending/facilitating shg meets, I realized that there’s more to life than
worrying about stammering. Acceptance, and not fluency, is the key to manage
stammering. Only thing is that I realized this late :P. And now the feeling to help
other PWS realize this, is the force driving me forward.

6. How this change
(taking up the role of facilitation) has helped you? In what ways? how?

Taking the role of a
facilitator has primarily helped me by boosting my confidence. It has enhanced
my leadership and managerial skills. It has also made me a better communicator.
Attending shg meets has made me aware of various verbal and non-verbal aspects
of ‘communication’ (which I earlier thought only meant ‘being fluent’).

And most important of
all, it has made a better person, by making me aware of my responsibility
towards the society. It has provided me a channel through which I can give back
to TISA and society for whatever I have gained.

7. What challenges do
girls face in joining and participating in SHGs? What could be done?

I believe girls hide
their stammering more as compared to boys, might be due to social pressure. As
a result of which they don’t come out of their comfort zones and don’t search
for self-help. This decreases the women to men ratio in SHG groups. Although
the ratio of women to men PWS is 1:4, in our SHG groups its even less, like 1:10.
And because of this same reason, girls who are members of SHG, do not come in
shg meetings, as they fear being isolated.

To improve girl’s
strength, much focus should be given to awareness of TISA among general public.
And at the same time, existing girl members should actively participate in SHG
meetings, which would create a positive environment for new girls to join in.

8. As SHG
facilitators, what challenges have you faced? and how did you deal with them?

One of the challenges is
facilitating the shg meet itself! When people come to shg meets, they expect to
take some learning back. Also we have new joiners in every meeting. So to draw
upon a meeting agenda which suits all the requirements is a big task. We solve
this out by having a core facilitation team instead of a single facilitator.
Also, as this is a self-help group, we are always open to new ideas and
feedback.

Another challenge,
especially when we had toastmaster’s model, is that people don’t take responsibility
seriously. So when roles are assigned to people for next shg meet and in event
they are not coming, they don’t feel the need to inform the meeting manager of
their absence. This used to burden the meeting manager to individually call each
one of them. People don’t tend to take meetings seriously.

Also a challenge that
many shg actually face is that you always find some people who like to keep on
talking, in fact on every topic! We have solved this issue by having a timer for
every speaker. So this provides everyone a fair chance of speaking.

9. What would you like
to say to a young pws, by way of a message?

Being a pws is not a
crime, so why worry so much about it! Just taking few seconds more to speak
doesn’t make you a failure. Does anyone hate Hrithik Roshan, as he is a
stammerer? No! People don’t care about the way we speak, it’s only we who make
a mountain out of a molehill. Accept yourself and see how easily people accept
you. Join a local SHG, attend TISA workshops and start noticing the difference
in you.

Life has many wonderful things
to offer and if you don’t stop worrying or grieving about stammering all 24 hours,
you will surely miss those.

Thanks,

Gaurav

(Thanks Gaurav and all of you in Mumbai SHG!! Ed.)