Cirecie West-Olatunji

11/17/2010 Delhi, India-Morning Session: After a short bus ride from our hotel “The Grand” we arrived at the National disaster Management Authority government of India where we met with Dr. K. Sekar, professor and head of the Dept of Psychiatric Social Work with the National Institute of Mental Health and Neuro Sciences. He explained the recent disaster which occurred the day we arrived in India. A high rise apartment building collapsed and seventy people were killed. Dr. Sekar talked about the services that are available and the compensation available to those who lost family members. However, he described a difficult situation where there were perhaps 15 people living in the same apartment and the difficulty in identifying who the surviving family member might who is the senior specialist with the National disaster Management authority government of India presented a slide show of the India profile and diverse language and religious diversity which presents some difficulty when dealing with natural disasters.

11/16/2010 Delhi, India-MORNING: We met at IHBAS with Professor (Dr.) Nimesh G. Desai, MD (Psych), MPH, MRC Psych director, Institute of Human Behaviour & Allied Sciences (IHBAS) and his staff for 3 hours. This was followed by a tour of IHBAS. Dr. Desai is very well-liked and respected by students and colleagues alike—every ten minutes or so, there were students and colleagues who came by to say hello to him and shake his hand!