Gabriel Calzado Ruiz is a DUE and has been at the âDalal-Xelâ Mental Health Centre in ThiĂšs (Senegal) since the end of January as an international volunteer for Juan Ciudad ONGD.
The center is run by Brother Francois Faye and is dedicated to mental health care, which opens the door to international volunteering. In this letter, Gabriel tells us about a visit from students from a school near the center.
Gabriel's Letter:
Last week, we were visited at Dalal Xel by students in their final year of university at the Saint Gabriel school in ThiĂšs. I was surprised by the visit; I'm not used to students from a school visiting a Mental Health Center in Spain.
It was going to be a very interesting afternoon, especially seeing the behavior and attitudes of both the students and the inmates.
François, along with Louise Faye, acted as a very good host and with his characteristic pride showed the facilities to the nearly one hundred students accompanied by his professor of Clinical Psychology, Madame Byage Biagui, and the Center's Philosophy professor, Monsieur Joe Faye.
Once they had seen the Outpatient Clinic and Dispensary area, they moved on to the Occupational Therapy classroom, which was converted into a meeting room, where Dr. Faye, a graduate in Psychiatry, gave an interesting talk on the current relationship between Senegalese society and mental health, giving a brief introduction to philosophy. I found it very interesting that the educational centers were openly discussing the problems of mental health and psychiatry in Senegal within the health center itself, perhaps because in Spain, discussing these topics has always been somewhat taboo, not only in our society but even within our healthcare sector.
The best was yet to come: the visit to the inmates. It was a moment I didn't want to miss. Perhaps I still held certain Western prejudices, thinking that the students would be a little afraid of entering, and that the inmates, due to their situation, might not want to interact. Of course, none of that happened. It's true that the students initially seemed somewhat shy and overly respectful, but upon seeing them, the inmates' expressions changed from the somewhat sad and monotonous look of what was just another day. Joyful and content, they began to chat with the visitors who had come to see them. Within five minutes, everyone was mingling and chatting about their own affairs...
When I asked the patients what they thought of the visit that evening, they all looked pleased and smiled as they told me: "Today was a different day, thank you very much, and I hope more people come to see us."
See you later
Text and photos by Gabriel Calzado
