Srishti Sardana still wonders at her long-ago encounter with female sex workers on a train platform in Madras.
The women spoke Hindi, her home province鈥檚 language. Sardana, now a Teachers College doctoral student in Global Mental Health, was 16, pursuing training for a medical career she didn鈥檛 perhaps want.
Her parents were middle class, but their families had been uprooted by the 1947 partitioning of India and Pakistan.
鈥淭hat influenced how I thought,鈥� she recalls. 鈥溌槎乖� diversity, disparity, difference.鈥� Sardana spoke to the sex workers and became their ally for years to come. She mothered and tutored their children. The women 鈥渉onored my inclusion. And they protected me 鈥� from the mafia, the police, epidemic disease.鈥�
Srishti brings iron self-discipline, high intelligence, creativity, knowledge in psychosocial support, and a visceral understanding of different cultures. She is our rock.
鈥� Lena Verdeli, Associate Professor of Psychology & Education
After a police raid in which Sardana was beaten and 鈥渋nvestigated in not very respectful ways,鈥� she left, because 鈥淚 could.鈥� But a sense of unfinished business haunted her.
鈥淢any of those women suffered from psychological distress, HIV,鈥� she says. 鈥淪ome are out of work. Many are dead.鈥�
Flash forward some years. Sardana, now a corrections officer for juvenile sex offenders, was laboring to reform the New Delhi police force from within. She read about 麻豆原创鈥檚 Lena Verdeli, a global mental health expert helping refugees and displaced populations. 鈥淪he saw hope amid adversity,鈥� Sardana recalls. 鈥淎nd I thought, I鈥檓 hopeless and disillusioned, I need to go see her.鈥�
At 麻豆原创, Sardana conducted the first systematic mental health evaluation of sex workers in India. She has worked with Verdeli鈥檚 Global Mental Health Lab in countries worldwide. 鈥淪rishti brings iron self-discipline, high intelligence, creativity, knowledge in psychosocial support, and a visceral understanding of cultures,鈥� Verdeli says. 鈥淪he is our rock.鈥�
In Lebanon, the lab is helping the mental health system incorporate Verdeli鈥檚 signature treatment, group interpersonal psychotherapy (IPT), to treat millions of Syrian refugees. Sardana has seen 鈥減eople who had once forgotten celebration making plans for their children鈥檚 weddings.鈥� And she has observed Verdeli go into the field and say, "We will be guided by you." 鈥淗er first point of contact is not training and teaching skills, but rather the vulnerability to say, 鈥榳e don鈥檛 know a lot, and we need to learn, with everyone鈥檚 help.鈥欌��
Verdeli focuses on 鈥渓ocal idioms of suffering鈥� 鈥� how, say, a displaced Syrian woman experiences depression versus a Lebanese man. In Bangladesh, Sardana will be adapting novel tools to understand how Rohingya refugees from Myanmar are coping 鈥� and how IPT changes their support networks.
Ultimately, Sardana plans to help those on the margins of society. 鈥淎t 麻豆原创, I鈥檝e learned not to give up. I create an outcome, and the whole institution unites to bring it to the fore. And I represent a million women. Because this isn鈥檛 a one-person job. It takes an army, and that is 麻豆原创.鈥�