This book was created to tell young readers the true story of two brilliant sisters who experienced marginalisation and mental illness, then became leaders in inclusive mental health care.
Written in accessible and child-friendly language, the story touches on themes including marginalisation, psychosocial distress, mental health care, sex education, grief and more.
We hope it will remind children (and the teachers and parents who read with them!) of the expansive possibilities for what courage, leadership, and revolution can look like.
The Banyan, founded in 1993, is a mental health and social care provider serving people who live in the intersections of homelessness, psychosocial distress, and mental illness. We offer comprehensive mental health services including emergency care, inpatient and outpatient services, group housing, hospital-based care, enabling care access through grassroots mobilisers, facilitating social entitlements and employment, and more.
Our focus is on transformative social justice; on enabling choice, belonging, and purpose for the most vulnerable. Our approaches are rigorously science and research-based, and all uncompromisingly centre users’ rights, consent, agency, and personhood. Our vision is an inclusive, humane world that promotes capabilities, equity and justice.
Rural India Supporting Trust (RIST) is a family foundation that invests philanthropic dollars into multi-dimension poverty alleviation initiatives with a special focus on access to healthcare for all in India. Our core strategic areas of intervention are Health, Disability, Education and Environment.
Established in 2007, Rural India Supporting Trust (RIST) was born from a simple yet powerful idea – the idea of equity. We believe that access to high quality services, is a right for everyone, not a privilege for a few. We work with value aligned publicly supported organizations to realize our vision of creating an equitable India which provides a physically and mentally healthy environment for all.
In the last 5 years alone, RIST has invested approximately $120 million, on an average $24 million per year, in support of our mission. This has supported the good work of over 130 different organizations across India.
Our footprint is not limited just to investing money. We actively work to build open and transparent partnerships. We work closely with our partners in supporting them with knowledge creation, enhancing capacities and building leadership.
Jacklin Janaki is an auxiliary nurse; Amali Margaret is a House Manager. Together they lead a team of women who run nine group-homes in Trichy, where they care for forty-four women with experiences of mental illness and marginalisation, as part of The Banyan’s Home Again program.
‘Jacklin & Amali’ tells the true story of how these brilliant, courageous, awe-inspiringly resilient sisters survived the blows circumstance dealt them, and how their own distress powered their drive to alleviate others’.
The sisters live together in their childhood home in Kovandakurichi.
