Mentor | Lenze Pekelsma. Counselor | Malini Patel.
“The most spellbinding thing I learnt at The Goa School is (good) mental health and how mental health helps us communicate with ourselves, and with other individuals.”
— From a thank you letter Rohit wrote at the end of the contact program in September 2021.
More in Rohit’s own words:
“I learned a lot about respecting myself. Before going to The Goa School, I was coming from a very bad time in my life. Last year I lost my mother; so while attending The Goa School I learned how to respect my thoughts and my priorities.
You know, when you are stuck in some bad times, you have to just move on. For me, The Goa School was that path. I was able to meet new people with new ideas… a new landscape, new demography.
I am into art right now. Documentaries, photography, painting, and all. But due to some financial issues, I had to join a job in Himachal. So, because of my busy schedule and my job, I was not doing well in my art work.
When I joined The Goa School, I had some free time to explore my passion for art. For me, it is free time to explore myself also. I already did a project over there, (in Goa), near the beach. It is a photography documentation.
After doing the photography about life near the beach in Goa — I did around 15-20 polaroid photos over there — I am also going to pursue that work over here (in Himachal where I live). Himachal is a land of rivers. I am thinking of pursuing a project about the life we live around rivers. As humans, for surviving, we have to have a water source near us. My interest is how human life behaves around water bodies.
(At The Goa School) I was able to start from a new beginning, search for new stories. For this (searching for new stories), I needed to be very patient and very calm, without thinking too much about the outside world; that’s what I was able to do at The Goa School.
(My counselor) Malini ma’am used to call me about my condition; she used to ask me about my past and present life, what thoughts I had. While talking to her, I told her a lot about losing my mother. She talked to me about letting go, and writing letters to her as if she is present with me. So while doing that activity, I wrote around 5-6 letters to my Mom, which came to me as a storyline. For me now it is a storyline for a new story.
It was more about me being able to pick up the broken pieces, and getting myself back, that’s the main thing. Malini ma’am helped me with this. At that point, I really needed someone who would listen.
Lenze was my mentor, every week he used to ask me: what are you doing, what are your next plans, what project(s) are you going to pursue within the next month or year?
I don’t think it (The Goa School) has changed me, but the thing is, I was able to get myself back. The person I used to be in the past, before losing my mother.”
This storyboard is based on an interview conducted by Seher Arora, as part of her internship at The Goa School, in July 2022.
