“Sangath: Bridging the Gap.” Satyamev Jayate.
Profile: Sangath. Mental Health Innovators website.
Chinai, Rupa. “Indian Paradise Takes Novel Approach to Mental Health.” Bulletin of the World Health Organization 85, no. 8 (August 2007): 576.
“Sangath Study Highlights Reasons for Alcohol Problems in Goa.” December 4, 2013. Times of India. (optional)
Patel, V. “Sundar: Mental Health for All.” The British Journal of Psychiatry 21, no. 1 (2015).
Sangath’s Biennial Report: 2012-2014 (PDF - 11.0MB).
Sangath for MIT intro, biosketches, key concepts
Videos
Vikram Patel: Mental Health for All
Patel, Vikram. “Mental Health for All by Involving All.” TEDGlobal 2012.
Vikram Patel helps bring better mental health care to low-resource communities—by teaching ordinary people to deliver basic psychiatric services.
In towns and villages that have few clinics, doctors and nurses, one particular need often gets overlooked: Mental health. When there is no psychiatrist, how do people get care when they need it? Vikram Patel studies how to treat conditions like depression and schizophrenia in low-resource communities, and he’s come up with a powerful model: Training the community to help.
Based in Goa for much of the year, Patel is part of a policy group that’s developing India’s first national mental health policy; he’s the co-founder of Sangath, a local NGO dedicated to mental health and family wellbeing. In London, he co-directs the Centre for Global Mental Health at the London School of Hygiene & Tropical Medicine. And he led the efforts to set up the Movement for Global Mental Health, a network that supports mental health care as a basic human right.
From Sangath’s mission statement: “At the heart of our vision lies the ’treatment gap’ for mental disorders; the gap between the number of people with a mental disorder and the number who receive care for their mental disorders.”
“This comprehensive work empowers healthcare workers in under-resourced and developing communities to build much-needed mental health care into all aspects of existing services.” Amazon.com review of:
Eapen, Valsamma, Philip Graham, and Shoba Srinath. Where There Is No Psychiatrist: A Mental Health Care Manual. Royal College of Psychiatrists Publications, 2012. [Preview with Google Books]
About his talk: Vikram in his talk stresses on the need for mental health care for all by involving all by shifting tasks to the local people of communities rather than relying on specialists. He gives examples of his experiences in rural India & some shocking statistics related to mental health to convey this urgent message of democratising mental health.
MacArthur Award Interview with Vikram Patel
macfound. “Vikram Patel of Sangath.” October 9, 2008. YouTube.
Sangath, Goa’s largest and most successful health-related NGO, was one of eight recipients of the MacArthur Award for Creative & Effective Institutions in 2008.
Sangath’s Premium Project
SangathGoa. “Clinical trial Sangath.” August 12, 2014. YouTube.
On alcohol addiction program. Observe how a team of passionate, energetic lay health counsellors led by their supervisors work to treat depression and alcohol use disorders in a low-resource setting in India.
Sangath’s Premium project works with non-specialist health workers to deliver psychological treatments for depression and alcohol-use disorders in primary health care settings in Goa.
This video won the third prize at the Global Health Trials competition supported by the Royal Society of Tropical Medicine and Hygiene Oxford, U.K., in celebration of Clinical Trials Day 2014.
