Thank you for taking time to read our JustGiving page!

About the Amrita Foundation Hospital

In November, we will be volunteering at Amrita Foundation in Kathmandu, Nepal for four weeks. This is a 60 bed residential mental health hospital - one of few mental health hospitals in Nepal. The main provision for those whose families have paid for their treatment and residence in the hospital, is centred around psychology and medication. Due to the increasing demand, it is reported that there are over a 100 residents currently residing at Amrita, with more and more referrals being received. The difficulties experienced by the residents include depression, anxiety, psychosis, substance use and other disabilities. Please see links below for more information about Amrita:

-Click to view the website for Amrita Foundation Nepal

-Click to view a video

One of the programs at Amrita Foundation Hospital

Occupational Therapy

'Occupational Therapy' provides practical support to empower people with recovery and overcome barriers preventing them from doing the activities (or occupations) that are important to them. This support increases people's independence and quality of life.

"Occupation" refers to practical and purposeful activities that allow people to live independently and have a sense of identity. This could be essential day-to-day tasks such as self-care, work or leisure.

Read more about occupational therapy: The Royal College of Occupational Therapists

Occupational therapy as a profession does not exist in Nepal, but previous occupational therapist volunteers have started working in various areas including at the Amrita Foundation Hospital. In speaking to previous volunteers, we have been enlightened about the positive outcomes that can be achieved using occupation based activities and running therapeutic groups. Previous volunteers have also informed us about the lack of resources and funding to provide the residents with a sense of purpose, structure and meaning on a daily basis. We would therefore like to continue and build on the work of the previous volunteers.

We hope to engage the residents in varied activities including:

*Creative arts and crafts based activities.

*Health and wellbeing related activities.

*Cultural activities related to celebrations and festivals such as Tihar which will be taking place during our time there.

*Music and dance.

*Recovery focused occupations.

We kindly ask for donations to buy equipment that will allow us to engage the residents in therapeutic activities that may develop into occupations that they can continue with in the long-term to help with their recovery. Our aim is to leave some sustainable resources and ideas that the staff at and residents at Amrita will benefit from after we leave.

We aim to raise £500. This money is not for our trip, but to enable us to provide various activities and for things that can remain there for example arts and craft items, sports, gardening and music equipment. Any extra money will be donated to the foundation.

Thank you very much for your time and donation!

--------------------------------------------------------------------------------

Update : December 2018

As mentioned in the update whilst we were in Nepal, we spent our month volunteering elsewhere. Thanks to the generous donations we were able to create a sensory room for the children's neuro-developmental service (New Life Nepal), provide staff training, and buy fine motor and sensory integration based equipment. We also ran some staff training sessions for the National Institute of Psycho-Education and Counselling. Here are some photos of our achievements.