A peek into SCARF’s vocational unit 

It is around 4 p.m. and Sarah Daniel is staring across an empty room at the vocational unit of Schiz

It is around 4 p.m. and Sarah Daniel is staring across an empty room at the vocational unit of Schizophrenia Research Foundation (SCARF) in Anna Nagar. Over the phone, Sarah informs she is all alone except for a worker cleaning the room. Only thirty minutes earlier, the room was a beehive of activity, packed with people.

“We had close to 40 people at the centre today, taking up different activities,” says Sarah, an occupational therapist. That is the usual number, between 10 a.m. and 3.30 p.m., when the vocational unit functions.

In an “earlier era”, the floor would be even more crowded — hosting twice the current number of people — and there would hardly be any elbow room for anyone.

Sarah notes that following the breaks caused by the pandemic, the numbers thinned and never got back to their original girth.

The unit hosts various categories of people needing help: Colouring is all the therapy some people would require; some others would need to engage in a form of focussed work; and there are those who need acute care and require more intense occupational therapy.

The unit turns out a variety of products, which include items made for the staff and patients.

“Every month, more than 100 files, 4000 patient ID cards and 4000 medicine covers are rolled out of this place,” says Sarah. Besides these, a variety of utility items are fashioned. An areca leaf plate unit and a screen printing unit also functions along the same lines.