Monthly Archives: April 2020

I had heard of Vishwas and the excellent work they were doing to help people with emotional stress even before I settled in Bangalore. So it was with great eagerness that I volunteered. The superb training programme took my breath away with its tremendous learning, sharp insights and hammering in of all the essential ingredients to become a committed Vishwas volunteer.

It has been eight years since and though I have learnt a lot, the learning is still ongoing…

My journey in Vishwas started as a wish to help people, what I didn’t expect was all the growing and help I keep getting back. I am so proud and grateful to be a part of this wonderful family, Vishwas!

Having raised two teenagers and simultaneously cared for elderly in law’s and parents gave me lot of perspective in life. I wanted to help those who need emotional support dealing with these issues. I wanted to learn the techniques and insights for doing effective counselling. Vishwas provided me the perfect opportunity to learn, understand the nuances on how to deal with the counselling intricacies. Viswas’s training was very interactive and insightful. It provided me completely different perspective on how to deal with emotional issues. I realised that I have lot to learn but I am confident that I can do so with guidance from Vishwas. I would like to thank all mentors who took time to guide and help me.

Reminiscence of a path I have followed over the last 22 years with passion and perseverance. Vishwas to me has become my way of life. This most satisfying and fascinating journey has made me the biggest beneficiary. It has awakened me to understanding the uniqueness of human minds and their behaviors. I have moved away from taking stands of right and wrong to accepting and realizing that there are many perspectives. The challenge is to tune in to the right frequency of these perspectives be it – a couple, a family or a work situation.

I want to use this opportunity to thank each one of my colleagues for their faith and support they had in me over the years. I truly believe that Vishwas wouldn’t exist but for this support. I would also like to express a deep sense of affection and gratitude that the people I reached out to have bestowed on me. Their good wishes and positivity keeps me going until today.

And to Vishwas all I want to say is you taught me commitment, discipline, empathy and humility.

I salute YOU.

Vishwas has positively impacted me in more ways than one.
Here, I have learnt that though I can never really change anyone, I can help. I can be a resource. I can nurture, listen to, empathise, understand, serve, sacrifice, appreciate, accept and affirm. I can provide the opportunity, the nurturance and the encouragement.
And as I endeavour to bring comfort to the anguished lives I am privileged to touch, I with reverence and gratitude in my heart say to Vishwas, ”You lift me and I lift thee, and together we ascend”.

My intention to join Vishwas was to see how to put into practice that I had learnt in theory through formal education. But what happened later is fulfilling and I did not anticipate at that time. This volunteering effort continues to heal my life.

After the experiential training at Vishwas, I joined as a volunteer in June, 2015. The counseling methodology followed by Vishwas was something I was naturally attracted during formal education studies too. I soon realized Vishwas has put in a matured working model with continuous learning through monthly volunteers meetings & weekly supervisions and is no less than a professional setup.

In summary, the whole experience is learning with humility, while being there as a mere catalyst.

Vishwas, for me has been a 19 years journey of trust, faith and belief; that has opened a new world for me. My joy knows no bounds when in few days to a few weeks, I see tangible changes in those who come to Vishwas looking for help to solve their life’s problems.
I have benefitted the most: I feel I have become a better friend, a better daughter, a better colleague, a better human being. Here is my expression of Gratitude to all my Gurus; my family, my colleagues, my friends and my managers for their support in this
journey.

Vishwas has helped me to become an effective communicator with an ability to listen. It has helped me to create support groups and network that I can rely on to help me effectively balance my priorities – family, career, friends. It has helped me to admit mistakes, learn from them, remain open to make midcourse corrections with humility and passion.

Twenty years is a long time in the life of any organisation. It is more so for a not for profit organisation like Vishwas which was a sort of trend setter to extend free and confidential services to help people in emotional stress. It is quite amazing to imagine now that Vishwas came into being purely by chance thanks to the initiative of Lata Jagannathan of Bangalore Medical Trust (more popularly known as TTK Blood Bank) and Kishore Rao of Karunashraya and the first training programme for lay volunteers conducted by PRN Murthy in June 1991. From 29 August 1991 till today the journey has been exciting, satisfying and rewarding.

I signed up as a Volunteer for Vishwas last year and it has been nothing less than an awakening for me personally. The training program helped me not only learn the process of counselling but also an important and often ignored facet of life – empathy and listening towards others. Vishwas made me more aware of myself and taught me that it is OK to feel vulnerable and seek help.

I look forward to coming to Vishwas every week. The organization is designed in such a way that as a volunteer, I am encouraged to keep improving myself so that I can offer better help to my callers. I have an experienced supervisor who is available to clear my doubts, wonderful fellow volunteers from various walks of life, many of who have been associated with Vishwas for more than a decade now, monthly meetings where we meet an expert on a topic related to mental wellness and finally, an ocean of books in our center to devour on related topics.

The organization runs like clockwork and is a shining example of how a non-profit organization can change the world. I can only but feel grateful that I am a part of Vishwas.

Being at Vishwas is as normal as breathing now. I’m just very proud to be part of the 21 years of Vishwas’s
commitment to voluntary counseling.
In the initial part of my decade long association with Vishwas, the commitment weighed on me.

However, the commitment of the veterans and the faces of my callers would give me the strength to step out of home and walk in with a smile.

To me, Vishwas is very personal. It allowed me to fulfill possibly my life’s
purpose and provided a happy place and group of people to be associated with.