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Members
of the Executive Committee of SAA and other volunteers working
for SAA
Dr.
Jagannath Wani, Founder President & Member at Large
Phone:
(403) 288-0048
Dr. Wani is Professor Emeritus of Statistics and Actuarial
Science at the University of Calgary. For a six year period,
1982-1988, he was Chairman of the Division of Statistics.
One of his major contributions to the University is the
creation of Actuarial Science degree program in 1983. His
fund-raising activities include several scholarship programs
for university students, chair of Schizophrenia at the University
of Calgary, relief fund for 1993 earthquake in India and
many development projects in India.
He is
founder of more than 14 voluntary organizations that include
Schizophrenia Society of Alberta, Maharashtra Seva Samiti
Organization, Raga-Mala Performing Arts of Canada and Vedanta
Society of Calgary. Besides serving on the Board of the
societies he founded, he also served on the Boards of Calgary
Chamber Music Society, India Canada Association of Calgary,
Camrose International Institute and Government of Alberta's
Heritage Council. His experience in Development related
activities include membership of the Program Review Committee
of the Prairie Decentralized Support Program (PDSP).
Dr.
Wani has been honored by at least seven institutions in
India and Canada for his voluntary services to help the
less privileged. These include Outstanding Service Award
(1994) Special Felicitation by the President of India at
the Jagatik Marathi Parishad and YMCA Calgary Peace Medal
(2004) for International Peace Initiatives.
Yeshwant
Oak, President
Phone:
020 24378482,
Cell: 9823367727
Mr.Yeshwantrao
Oak, BE (Civil) from COEP-Pune, who had worked with Hindustan
Construction Company Ltd., Bombay, for 6 years was associated
with important projects as their design and project engineer.
After resigning from HCC in 1962 he started his own construction
company, in partnership with his engineer friends, under
the name of Alankar Industries. This firm carried out, in
pre-cast & pre-stressed concrete, prestigious projects.
On retirement in 1992 the charge of this firm was given
to his son.
Mr.Oak
has been associated with the Rotary Club community activities
since 1993. His involvement included for causes such as
polio vaccination, anti drug abuse campaign, Clean-and-Green-Pune,
skills-enhancement campaign for rural tradesmen etc. not
only in Pune city but also in neighbouring rural areas.
Presidentship of the Rotary District was also assigned to
him for some years. Besides, he is an active life member
of the Senior Citizens Club of Dhankawdi, Pune.
Mr.Oak
is a widely traveled person in India and abroad on account
of which he has a wider perspective on all issues that count.
He was ably suited for the Secretaryship of the NRIs' socio-cultural
organization Vishwasetu Association.
In 2004,
after his re-election for a second term, he was elevated
as President of SAA. His administrative acumen, foresight
and initiatives have made significant difference in the
functioning of the organization. His enormous spade-work
in production & distribution of SAA-produced first-ever
and award-winning film, DEVRAI, is an invaluable contribution
towards success of this project.
Mr.
Oak was one of the invitees from SAA to participate in the
International Leader Training & Annual Conference hosted
by Recovery Inc. at Chicago in May 2005. His leadership
is a substantive asset to the organisation's continued growth
for rendering mental health support to the community.
Hari Athawale, Vice president
Phone: 020 25464186
Mr.
Hari Athawale studied Masters in Stastics from Pune University
and Diploma in System Analysis from New York University.
He then chose "Banking" as his career. He has
worked with State bank of India for 22+ years and with Bank
of New Zealand, New York for 7 years. After return from
USA , where he worked for 12 years, he worked with ICICI
Bank Ltd. in Pune for 8+ years as a Principal of 'ICICI
Training Institute'. Presently he represents 'University
of Michigan Business School' in India and co-ordinats their
corporate executive education programs in India.
He is
working with SAA since its inception. He is also Vice President
of "Vishwasetu Association" and Trustee in "K.S.wani
Memorial Trust, Dhule." . Apart from social activities
he also takes keen interest in sports and theatrical activities.
Gurudatt
Kundapurkar, Vice President
Phone:
020 25441620
Mr.Gurudatt
Kundapurkar, had graduated from the Bombay University with
English Literature as major & Philosophy as subsidiary
topics. He belongs to the first batch of post-graduate diploma
holders in Advertising & PR from the Bhavan's College,
Bombay, in the late sixties.
He had
a successful innings at Larsen & Toubro Ltd., Mumbai/Pune,
from where he retired in 1997 as Marketing Manager, Earthmoving
Machinery Spares Division, for western India. He was responsible
for training and counseling of staff and customers. He was
part of the team that framed the company's vision &
mission statements, spread within the organization the then
new concepts like Total Quality Management, Kaizen and ISO-9000
standardisation of procedures & audit.
To enable
him do his bit for the social cause, he did a four-day workshop
in counseling organized jointly by the Lions Club, Pune
and NIMHANS, Bangalore in 1998. Additionally, he completed
his training as a Master Practitioner in NLP (Neuro Linguistic
Programme), a technique he has been using to help others
in achieving proficiency and peace in their vocation and
life.
He joined
SAA as a volunteer in 2001. Since then he has fulfilled
varied assignments : self-help support group facilitator,
joint editor of Ekalavya,
SAA's
quarterly, member of SAA team for organizing public awareness
programmes in mental health care & management. He has
presented papers at international conventions hosted by
World Fellowship for Schizophrenia & Allied Disorders
(HQ at Canada) at Chennai and Recovery Inc. at Chicago,
their HQ.
He was elected to the Managing Committee and designated
VP in 2004.
Anil
Vartak, Secretary since 2000
Phone: 020 24483650
Mr.
Vartak is M.A, M Phil in Economics from 'Gokhale Institute
of Politics and Economics', Pune. Presently he is a Lecturer
in Economics in Sir Parshurambhau College, Pune since 1985.
He has been recognised as a Post Graduate teacher by University
of Pune. His extra-curricular activities include membership
in Examination committee, NSS, Medical Check-up, Annual
Magazine and as a coordinator of Staff Colloquium. He is
working as a co-ordinator of "Vision 2020" project
based on writings of Dr.A.P.J.Kalam, President of India.
He has
a vast experience in activities related to Mental Health.
He started a Self Help group called as "Eklavya"
in 1998 and has done a pioneering work in rehabilitation
of persons suffering from Schizophrenia and other mental
disorders and increasing awareness amongst the caregivers,
in particular, and public, in general.
He is
a member of the Executive Committee of NFMI [National Federation
For Mentally ILL] since 2000. He has served as member of
a Working Group appointed by Government of Maharashtra regarding
Inclusion of Mental Illness as a disability in the 'Persons
with Disability Act'. He was an Advisor to "Bapu Trust",
Pune. He appeared on Television in 'Priya Tendulkar Talk
Show' in 1998 covering Schizophrenia.
He has
published an article titled "Lean On Me" in Indian
Express in 2000. He has been regularly contributing articles
on mental health in periodicals like 'Saptahik Sakal', 'Shree
Deeplakshmi', 'Rashtravadi' etc. He has written few poem
in English which have been published in a booklet titled
"Hope Floats" published by SAA. One of the poems
"Harmony" is being hosted by WFSAD web-site under
STIGMA section for last six years. He has written a small
booklet "Let us try and see" based on his personal
mental health self help strategies. WFSAD has agreed to
publish a one page article in their forthcoming newsletter.
He participated
in Poster Presentation and proceedings of annual conference
of National Alliance for Mentally Ill {NAMI] in Washington
In June 2001. During his US visit he visited several 'Self
Help Groups' and saw the activities in Mental Health Rehabilitation.
He also stayed with Dr.Robert Macitire, current president
of Recovery Inc. for two weeks and underwent training of
Recovery self help method for patients. After this training
he introduced 'Recovery Method' for the patients in SAA.
He participated
and presented a paper on " Coping with stigma "
and shared the experiences of 'SAA Self Help Group' at WFSAD's
biennial conference held at Kyoto, Japan in October 2002.
He was speaker at Plenary session for WFSAD Biennial International
Conference held in Chennai, in November 2004. He gave presentation
on "Psychiatric Rehabilitation-Consumer perspective"
in conference organised by NIMHANS and sponsored by WHO
in Banglore in January 2005. He participated in 'Annual
Leaders' Training Program' and 'Annual Conference of Recovery
Incorporation' [an organization which promotes Recovery
self help method] and gave presentation on "Recovery
method -An Indian Experience" in Chicago in May 2005.
Raghunath
Acharya
Mr.
Raghunath Acharya, a retired civil engineer, was a Member
of the Indian Railway Service of Engineers. Before he retired
as Additional Chief Planning & Design Engineer he worked
as Chief Engineer (Construction) / Additional Chief Engineer
for seven years on Central Railway. Prior to that he also
had varied assignments in the Railways' Vigilance and Personnel
Departments.
Since
inception of SAA in 1997, Mr.Acharya has been a very active
caregiver - volunteer. His natural leadership and empathetic
approach came in handy to fulfill the responsibility of
a facilitator of the Ekalavya self-help support group meant
for caregivers. Both for new comer and experienced caregivers
Mr.Acharya is a sympathetic listener and a guide. He is
also their source of information on mental health institutions
& professionals, besides on important special issues
like income-tax provisions for affected persons and their
carers. By his sagacious sharings at SAA's public awareness
programmes, he has earned a niche for him in the mental
health scenario.
Mr.Acharya
was elected second time to SAA's Executive Committee and
he continues to ably manage as Treasurer.
Neelima
Bapat
Phone: 20 24471787
Mrs.
Neelima Bapat is Masters in English with a Graduation in
'Psychology & philosophy. She also did her one year
course in "Teachers' Training for Handicapped Children".
She has done a Diploma in Homeopathy.
She
started working in Corporate Offices and then moved to teaching
profession. She taught at Highschool, Technical highschool
and in Printing Diploma College. She worked as honorary
teacher in "Kamayani School for Mentally Handicapped".
In between she ran a shop of food products.
She
joined SAA in 1998 as a volunteer and has worked for four
terms as 'Joint Secretary'. She continues to be the member
of the Managing Committee of SAA. She is working as facilitator
for 'Care Givers' Group' and 'Patients' Group' for last
4 years. She actively participates in all activities of
SAA such as creating 'Self Help Groups' at other places,
Sports, Antarnad (entertainment activity), Picnics, Home
Visits etc. She attended the following seminars/conferences:
- Conference
aranged by WFSAD
- Second
National Conference for Care Givers arranged by IPH, Thane
- International
Leaders' Training Program and Annual Meet at Chicago,
USA organised by Recovery Inc., Chicago
- First
NFMI meet in Delhi
- Attended
the three meetings of Patients, Caregivers and General
in Ottawa, Canada arranged by WFSAD
- She
attends various workshops to update her skills.
In addition
to above activities of SAA she is also associated with other
following non-profit organisations:
- Non
Resident Indians' Parents' organisation
- Private
and Public Trusts of Bank of Maharashtra
- As
a hobby she also works as a professional 'Rangoli' designer.
Other
Volunteers working for SAA:
Mr.Vidyadhar
Bapat, a multi-talented volunteer, musician & theatre-cum-tv
exponent, is the prime resource person who has raised hope,
self-esteem, confidence and socialization of the shubharthis,
using physical exercises, yoga, pranayam, games, besides
performing arts like acting & singing.
Mrs.Smita
Godse, another volunteer who helps in activities like
support group meetings, day-time activities, variety entertainment,
sports etc.
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